


The Beast of Gravity Falls

by OrangeOctopi7



Category: Beauty and the Beast (1991), Gravity Falls
Genre: Fairy Tale Retellings, Gen, Gravity Falls AU, Gravity Falls/Beauty and the Beast AU, Inspired By Tumblr, family love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-28
Updated: 2018-08-29
Packaged: 2019-07-03 23:20:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 26,699
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15828999
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OrangeOctopi7/pseuds/OrangeOctopi7
Summary: A Beauty and the Beast AU inspired by artsycrapfromsai on tumblr. Long ago, in a far-away land, there was an enchanted castle, where lived two brothers who were tricked by a demon. Now the castle and all who lived there are afflicted by a terrible curse, and only true love can break it. Two young twins have come to help, but who could ever love a beast?





	1. Chapter 1

A long time ago, in a faraway land, there lived two brothers. Both sought love, but did not know how to find it. The first pursued knowledge in hopes of gaining the love of people who shunned him for his abnormality. The second pursued riches in hopes of gaining the love of people who thought him useless. But in their pursuit they drifted apart, and thus lost sight of what little love they did have, for each other. As time wore on they both made more and more mistakes, and felt less and less love. They both began to feel worthless.

 

One day the eldest came upon an enchanted castle, home to a strange fairy that promised him the knowledge he sought. He soon moved into the castle and wrote three volumes with what he learned. But he was deceived.

 

The fairy revealed himself to be an evil trickster, and used the eldest in an effort to spread it’s chaotic magic across the world. In desperation, the eldest called for his brother to help him. But when the second brother arrived, he did not understand the circumstances. Instead they were both blinded by rage and bitterness over old mistakes. They were unable to stop the evil trickster, and its magic spread throughout the town, turning the first into the book he had loved more than his brother, and the second into a beast as ferocious as his temper. The people of the nearby town were also ensnared by the trickster’s curse.

 

In a desperate effort to stop the evil magic from spreading, the second brother made a bet. If he could find true love, and in turn learn to love himself, the curse on the castle and the surrounding town would be broken. But for every year the curse remained, his brother’s book would lose another page, and if the curse wasn’t broken before the last page fell, the chaos would engulf the whole world.

 

As the years wore on, they began to lose hope. For who could ever learn to love a beast?

 

* * *

 

_30 years later…_

 

Mornings in the market were a minefield. People of all walks of life hustling and bustling from the baker to the butcher to the blacksmith buying and selling wares. Perhaps it wasn’t the best place for a couple of short kids to be, but that didn’t stop them.

 

Young twins Dipper and Mabel Pines weaved and dodged through the traffic. They were trying to reach the library. Not only because it was a place of calm in the storm of busy people, but also because Dipper had finished his book last night.

 

“I just want to get the next Siblings Brothers book without getting trampled by a horse, is that too much to ask?” Dipper grumbled as he stopped to catch his breath in the doorway of the dairy.

 

“You gotta move like you’re dancing, bro!” Mabel advised him as she circled and swayed around the bustling crowd.

 

“No.” The boy said flatly.

 

“It might even help if you _sing~_ ” She lilted.

 

“Definitely not singing.” He insisted.

 

“Good morning kids.” The dairy farmer greeted them duely. “How’ve you been?”

 

“Great!” Dipper answered enthusiastically, “I just finished the _Case of the Missing Capers Case_ , it was so--”

 

“That’s nice, coming through!” The farmer pushed through.

 

“Why do grownups ask questions when they don’t really care about the answers?” Mabel wondered aloud.

 

Dipper shrugged as he watched for a gap big enough for two kids in the crowd headed towards the library. While he waited he noticed people cast sideways glances at the two of them. He knew what the townsfolk thought of him and his sister. “Cute but weird” they all said. It didn’t bother Mabel so much, she said it was part of her charm. But Dipper was bothered.

 

Ever since they’d come to this town asking about Gravity Falls Castle, the townsfolk had belittled him and his sister. “That’s just a story meant to scare small children.” they’d insisted. Dipper knew it couldn’t just be a story. The letter to his grandfather wasn’t some story. It was the only lead the twins had to their only remaining family.

 

Only two people in town had believed them. The first was the local kook, Old Man McGucket, who, while a brilliant inventor, was a bit on the crazy side. Partially because he had some serious memory issues, and partially because what little he did remember seemed impossible. He claimed he’d lived in Gravity Falls Castle thirty years ago, when everyone else believed the place had always been either deserted or haunted. Still, despite his eccentricities, McGucket was a kind man, and had taken the orphans in as soon as he learned they had no place to stay. Dipper and Mabel had lived with him ever since.

 

After a bit of careful maneuvering, the kids made it to the library.

 

“Wow, finished already?” The librarian asked Dipper.

 

“Yeah! Do you have the next one?” He replied excitedly.

 

“Let’s see, Sibling Brothers, right? Hmm…” The librarian glanced over the catalog cards. “Sorry kid, I think you’ve read every one we have.”

 

“Well, when do you think you’ll be getting any new ones?”

 

“What, do you think books are mass-produced at a rate of millions a day? These things don’t come cheap, especially to a little library in a provincial town like this.” The librarian scoffed. “Oh, and Mabel, about that werewolf book you wanted?”

 

“Yeah?” She asked excitedly.

 

“Well, it was returned, but after skimming through it I really don’t think it’s age appropriate.”

 

“Aw maaaaan.” the girl groaned.

 

The two of them left feeling a bit dejected. Their spirits weren’t lifted when they found someone waiting for them outside the door.

 

“Why Mabel, I had a feelin’ I’d run into you here!” Gideon Gleeful smiled broadly at her. “Hello Dipper.” He added weakly.

 

The second person to believe they had a long-lost relative at Gravity Falls Castle was Gideon, although Dipper sometimes doubted his sincerity. It would be just like Gideon to just say he believed them in a vain attempt to woo Mabel. Luckily Mabel wasn’t charmed by the little creep either way.

 

“What do you want Gideon.” Dipper asked dully.

 

“Can’t a gentleman just make friendly conversation?” The albino boy asked innocently.

 

“You’re no gentleman, Gideon.” Mabel huffed.

 

“Hey, you take that back!” Gideon’s hulking lackey, Ghost-Eyes, snapped. “Gideon is the greatest guy in town!”

 

“A _gentleman_ wouldn’t follow a girl around after she already told him _she wasn’t interested_ !” Mabel stated angrily. “A _gentleman_ wouldn’t make fun of the only person who took care of us when we came here!”

 

“Mabel my dear, we’re the two cutest people in town.” Gideon explained. “It’s expected that we end up together.”

 

“I defy expectations!” She declared and sauntered off.

 

“Gideon, quit creeping on my sister!” Dipper hissed.

 

“I’m sorry, all complaints must be screened by my assistant.” the little creep said smugly, pointing over to Ghost-Eyes. The thug glowered down at the brown-haired boy.

 

“Ehhhhh, I gotta go!” Dipper zipped off after his sister.

 

* * *

 

Even in the hustle and bustle of the crowded morning market, Dipper and Mabel could always find Old Man McGucket, mainly because he was always making a racket. Or, more accurately, his inventions were always making a racket. There was a loud bang and a shout of “Doggone it!” towards the north end of town. They found him tinkering with a large stove-like machine just outside of the shack they called home.

 

“Hey McGucket.” Dipper greeted their current caretaker casually. “You need help?”

 

“Howdy kids!” The old inventor greeted them more cheerfully. “Couldja find my allen wrench set?”

 

The three of them set about looking for the tools and talking about their day.

 

“So how was the library?” McGucket asked.

 

“They didn’t have either of our books.” Mabel pouted. “Well, they had mine, but they said it wasn’t age-appropriate, whatever that means.”

 

“Hey McGucket, do you think we’re… weird?” Dipper asked.

 

“Well what’d make you go an’ ask a question like that?”

 

“Just… things people say around town.” Dipper said glumly, burying his hands in his vest.

 

“Ah hush, people in this town say lotsa things.” The old man reassured him with a pat on the head.

 

As they continued to look, Mabel peeked under a pile of firewood. “I think I found it!” She called out, when suddenly a dark shape shot out from under the woodpile and into the woods north of town, carrying the toolkit with it.

 

“Some critter shim-shammed off with my allen wrenches!” McGucket cried out.

 

“C’mon, let’s go after it!” Dipper suggested, leaping up to make chase. Mabel was not far behind him.

 

“Stop right there!” the old inventor halted them before they’d gotten more than a few feet. “What’ve I told y’all about goin’ into them woods?”

 

“Don’t go stickin’ yer nose where it can git bit off!” Mabel imitated.

 

Dipper clenched his fists in frustration. “But you need those to finish this thing in time for the fair!”

 

“Don’t you worry none, I can jimmy up some thingamajig t’do the same job.” McGucket assured him. “Asides, that thing was headed straight t’wards that castle.”

 

“Exactly!” Dipper threw his hands up in the air. “Ever since I came here I’ve known there’s something weird about those woods around the castle! What was that thing? Why would a critter even need tools!?”

 

“Maybe it’s a squirrel, trained by gnomes to fetch things!” Mabel guessed.

 

“Yeah!” Dipper agreed. “See, she gets it!”

 

“Now Dipper, I’m not sayin’ yer wrong about that there castle.” McGucket assured him. “But whatever skulduggery's afoot up there ain’t nothin’ you wanna mess with. Jus’... jus’ come help me take the panel of this here doohickey…”

 

Dipper sighed in defeat and trudged back to help the old inventor. _One of these days_ he told himself, _I’m gonna get a chance to go to that castle and see what secrets it holds._

* * *

  


The day of the fair came bright and clear. McGucket had loaded his invention onto a cart and hitched it to the stray goat that hung around their shack.

 

"C'mon Gompers, git!" The old inventor shouted. The goat stood there and chewed at the cart's wheel.

 

"Are you sure we can't come?" Dipper pleaded.

 

"You two gotta stay here an' keep an eye on the inventions I ain't takin' with me." McGucket insisted as he adjusted the straps tethering the goat to the cart.

 

"We're gonna miss you!" Mabel hugged him. "Come back soon, OK? With lots and lots of first-place ribbons!"

 

"OK, you two look after each other while I'm gone!" The old man advised as he lead the goat along by dangling his hat in front of it.

 

* * *

 

McGucket’s journey started out uneventful. Gompers trudged along at a slow pace, but the weather was nice and the trail led through quaint countryside. Even the section of trail that skirted the woods was beautiful. The trees were lush and just open enough to see the clear blue sky above him. He almost didn’t notice the small bearded man that jumped out in front of them. But Gompers sure did.

 

“Shmebulock!” The gnome grunted, spooking the goat. The animal reared up and tipped over the cart.

 

“Sweet sarsaparilla!” McGucket exclaimed, loosing the bucking goat from the cart and  pulling on it’s lead and trying to calm it down. His efforts only served to upset it more, and he was dragged screaming deeper into the woods.

 

“Great job, Smebulock!” Jeff, the leader of the gnomes, complimented his lackey as he stepped out of the underbrush. “Now, let’s see what kinda parts we can get off this baby!”

 

“Dern goat! Stop it! Lemme go!” McGucket protested as the frantic animal crashed through the ever-thickening woods. Eventually he had the sense to let go of its lead and he tumbled into a small clearing. He looked around warily.

 

The woods here were not beautiful. They were not lush or open. They were dark and closed off and foreboding. The foliage was so thick he couldn’t even see the sun to navigate by. The old inventor had no choice but to follow the trail of broken plants left by Gompers. Luckily the goat had stopped not far off, and it had found something.

 

“A path!” the old man cheered. It was partially overgrown and obviously in disuse, but even old paths had to lead somewhere. “Now I jus’ gotta follow this back to town!” He picked the direction that looked more familiar and set off, Gompers following nervously behind him.

 

They soon came to a fork in the road. An old, weathered sign marked the two branches, but one was so worn it was illegible in the dim light. The second was dangerously crooked, but its words were clear. **Gravity Falls Castle**.

 

“Welp. I know which way I’m _not_ goin’!” McGucket turned down the dark trail the sign pointed away from. Gompers bleated pitifully and chewed at the crooked sign. It swayed wildly, obviously not firmly attached to the post.

 

“Cut that out ya dern critter!” he admonished the goat as he yanked it away. “Y’don’t wanna go there, believe me!”

 

The further down the path they went, the more Gompers protested. The further down the path they went, the more familiar the surrounding woods looked to McGucket. He was sure the path would end any minute now, putting them just outside of town. But the goat continued to pull back on the rope leading him and bleat like a scared baby. And in these woods there were plenty of animals that liked to eat baby goats.

 

The first wolf howl was distant, but it sent a cold shiver down McGucket’s spine. Not two minutes later he heard another, much closer. Then two in chorus.

 

 _Jus’ hurry,_ he told himself, _I know this area. I gotta be close!_

 

As he’d predicted, the path ended just ahead. But it didn’t end at the town, or the fair. It ended at Gravity Falls Castle.

 

“Oh, you really tarred it up this time, Fiddleford.” He muttered to himself. Gompers broke free of his grasp and fled into the woods. McGucket let the goat go. His only chance of getting away from those wolves was barricading himself in the castle. The cursed castle that was supposedly guarded by a savage beast.

 

Supposedly.

 

The wolves were definitely real though.

 

McGucket dashed inside and pulled the heavy oak doors shut behind him. He should be safe now, but his heart was beating frantically against his chest. This place seemed simultaneously foreign and familiar and it was giving him a headache.

 

“Who the heck is this loser?” someone whispered.

 

The old man whirled around frantically. The place was only dimly lit by grimy windows, but he should have been able to see anyone in there with him. The entryway was grand and open, not leaving many places to hide.

 

“Robbie, shut up!” a second voice hissed.

 

“Wh-who’s there?” McGucket called out shakily, slowly turning in circles, trying to find the source of the voices.

 

“It’s me, Soos!” A third voice replied jovially. The inventor whipped around to face the direction the voice had come from, only to find a toolbox lying on the floor. He picked up a hefty hammer cautiously.

 

“Sh-show yerselves!” He demanded. “I warn ya, I’m armed!”

 

“I’m right here dude.” The third voice said, this time right next to him. McGucket turned his head slowly to look at the hammer he’d picked up. It had a face!

 

“‘Sup dawg?” The hammer said nonchalantly.

 

“Aaugh!” The old man screamed and dropped the hammer

 

“Uhg, seriously Soos!?” the second voice scolded. Suddenly the room was full of movement. Random objects began to stretch and hop as though they were alive! Which, McGucket began to realize as he saw faces on them, they were. A rusty axe hopped towards him. “It’s ok dude, don’t freak out.”

 

“What in tarnation’s goin’ on here?” McGucket cried. His heart was racing and he began to hyperventilate. Was he having a panic attack?

 

“Aaaand he’s freaking out.” the first voice said. McGucket could now see it was coming from a black guitar sitting at the foot of the stairs.

 

“Somebody get the guy a blanket!” The rusty axe called out. “Ok man, take it easy. We’re gonna find you a nice chair you can sit in while you let this sink in.” She (at least McGucket assumed it was a she. It sounded like a teenage girl) led him to a comfy looking yellow recliner. “I’m gonna start you a fire to help you calm down, ok?”

 

The old man nodded mutely as he curled up in the chair. It was quite comfortable, although with the way the cushions engulfed him, he guessed whoever or _whatever_ usually occupied it was _much bigger_ than him.

 

“Here’s your blanket, dude.” The hammer from earlier hopped up, somehow tossing a blanket over his shoulders. McGucket took it wordlessly.

 

“Oooh man we are so dead.” The guitar griped. “We are all _so dead_.”

 

“Cut it out, Robbie, this guy’s freaked out enough as it is.” The axe berated him. “No one’s gonna be dead.”

 

“Yeah, sure, you keep telling yourself that Wendy!” Robbie snapped. “I’m sure he’ll be perfectly fine with some complete stranger sitting in his chair.”

 

“Even if he _did_ find out, no one would be _dead_ .” Wendy insisted. “Sure, he’d throw a fit, but it’s not like we don’t _already_ deal with the roaring and the shouting and the gnashing of the teeth all the time. But he’s not gonna find out, because this guy’s just gonna be here until the wolves move along. Then he’ll be on his way. Right?”

 

McGucket nodded mutely.

 

“Uuuh, you sure about that Wendy?” The hammer asked nervously, looking up the stairs.

 

“Soos, relax, he’s not gonna find out.”

 

“I’m not gonna find out _what_?” A rough voice growled dangerously from the darkened staircase above them.

 

“Oooooh…” The axe girl gulped.

 

McGucket looked up to see a hulking beast leap out of the shadows, clearing the steps in one bound and landing before him in another. It was covered in shaggy grey fur and the face of a hairy gargoyle. Its lumbering motions were half-way between a bear and a wolf.

 

“Who the heck’s this loser?” The Beast growled.

 

“That’s what _I_ said.” Robbie chimed in.

 

“ _Can it twerp_!” The Beast roared at the guitar before rounding on the old man. “What are ya, deaf or somethin’? Who are you and whaddoya want?”

 

“I--I--” McGucket struggled to find his words. He was terrified and confused. But now that he got a good look at the Beast’s face there was something… _familiar_ about it… about _him_. Despite his monstrous features his eyes were shockingly human, a deep earthy brown, filled with not just ferocity, but fear.

 

“What’re you lookin’ at?” The Beast asked angrily.

 

“I didn’t-- This is crazy but--” _I think I used to know you._

 

“Oh _I_ get it!” He bellowed “Come to stare at the _freaks_ , right!? You people’ve always made me sick! You think you’re better than us ‘cuz we’re different!”

 

“No, it’s not like that at all!” The old man finally managed to blurt out. “I got lost, there was wolves, I needed a place to stay!”

 

“You want a place to stay? Well what’re ya gonna _pay_ me for it?” The Beast roared.

 

“I-I haven’t got any valuables.”

 

“Dungeon it is then.” The Beast sneered, grabbing McGucket roughly and dragging him away.

 

The enchanted people-turned-objects watched in silence until they heard the door leading to the dungeons slam shut.

 

“Just the usual roaring and shouting and gnashing of teeth, huh?” Robbie snarked.

 

“Shut up Robbie.” Wendy muttered.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Castles, Magic, Monsters

Two days later Mabel Pines opened the door to find her worst nightmare waiting for her. Gideon stood at the doorstep, dolled up from head to toe, with Ghost-Eyes standing menacingly behind him and a whole crowd of townsfolk watching with anticipation. 

 

“Mabel, my sweet, today’s yer lucky day!” Gideon crowed.

 

“Why, are you moving away and never coming back?” She asked dryly.

 

The creepy boy laughed awkwardly. “Ohho, such a sense of humor you got! Jus’ one reason why I love ya so much.”

 

“Gideon, I’m a  _ love expert _ , and what you’ve got going on  _ isn’t _ what I’d call love.” The girl informed him, crossing her arms sullenly.

 

“My peach dumplin’, y’know I love ya, but ya really can’t call yerself an expert if ya’ve never kept a boyfriend for more than one date.” Gideon countered. Mabel gasped, shocked and hurt that he’d bring her failed romances into this.

 

“But that’s about to change!” The creep assured her. “I’m askin’ ya to be my full-time girlfriend!”

 

“Gideon I’ve already told you like a bazillion times! I. Will.  _ Never _ . Date. You!” She pushed him back for emphasis with each word, finally slamming the door in his face.

 

“Eheeheehee… she’s jus’... nervous, is all.” Gideon assured the crowd, rubbing the tender spot on his chest where she’d pushed him.

 

“Really?” Ghost-Eyes asked. “It kinda sounded more like another rejection.”

 

“Shut it!” The albino boy snapped. “You mark my words Ghost-Eyes, Mabel  _ will _ be mine!”

* * *

  
  


“Uhg! I can’t believe that creep asked me to be his girlfriend!” Mabel ranted. “I mean really! After all the mean things he’s said about you and McGucket!? After all the times I’ve threatened him with my grappling hook! What will it take for him to get the hint!? Sometimes I just wanna grab him by his stupid hair and just--” She mimed squeezing and shaking something. 

 

Normally that would make Dipper laugh, but he was silent. He just sat at the table, staring out the window.

 

“Dipper? Trying to vent here.”

 

“Sorry, it’s just, he should’ve been back by now.” Her brother explained.

 

“You mean McGucket?” She asked. Dipper nodded. “Don’t worry, I bet he met some super-rich business guy who wanted to buy his invention, and that’s why he’s taking so long!”

 

“But wouldn’t he have sent a messenger or something to tell us that?”

 

“Maybe he forgot.”

 

“Yeah, that’s probably it.” Dipper agreed, but he still couldn’t help but feel something was wrong. Then they heard a bleating outside the door.

 

“That’s him now!” Mabel cheered, and the twins rushed outside to find Gompers and… nothing else. No McGucket, no intervention, not even the cart! Just a very spooked goat.

 

The young girl gasped. “Gompers! What happened? Where’s McGucket? Is he hurt?”

 

“Mabel, it’s a goat, he can’t talk!” Dipper said flatly. “It looks like we’ve got a mystery on our hands! We can track Gomper’s trail back the way it came and hopefully find some clues of what happened to McGucket.”

 

“Dipper, I know you read about this stuff all the time, but there’s a big difference between  _ reading _ and  _ doing _ . Are you sure this is a good idea?” 

 

“Trust me, I got this.” Dipper assured her. “Besides, if we don’t, who will? Would you rather leave this to Constable Blubbs?

 

Mabel grimaced. “He  _ has _ got a lot on his plate planning the wedding.”

 

“Exactly! So let’s grab a lantern and some supplies and go solve a mystery!”

 

Following the trail was simple enough at first. The goat had been running and left clear footprints in the fields around town. They followed the tracks north to the edge of the forest. There was still a clear trail of broken underbrush to follow, but the kids hesitated to follow.

 

“Looks like it’s headed straight to the castle.” Dipper observed.

 

“Dipper, you  _ know _ what McGucket says about that place.” Mabel warned him.

 

“I know, but what if he’s in trouble there?” The boy reasoned. “Plus, this is our chance to finally find out what’s going on with that castle!” He held up an old letter he’d been carrying with him since shortly after their parents died. “This letter to Grandpa Sherman was from one of his brothers and it said he’d just moved into Gravity Falls Castle, yet everyone here says it’s been deserted for the last _ century! _ Aren’t you curious to find out what happened to our family?”

 

Mabel shuffled her feet a bit, thinking it over before looking up at her brother and nodding. “Alright, let’s go!”

* * *

  
  


As was usually the case whenever the master of the house got mad (which was often) he had left a bit of a mess. Broken steps on the staircase, cracked floorboards, just the usual. It was Soos’s job to fix it.

 

“Hammering in nails, doot-doo-doo~” he sang to himself as he worked. “Man, it sure would be cool if I made a whole musical number out of this! How about…  _ Oh I’m a handy hammer~ _ ”

 

His impromptu musical number was interrupted by a pair of shouting voices outside.

 

“ _ McGucket! ..Hey McGucket, are you here? ...Oh McGucket! _ ”

 

Soos peeked out the door to see a couple of kids wandering around the grounds of the castle, peering in windows and calling out the same name again and again.

 

“Oh man. Dudes!” He called out to the other denizens of the castle. “There are kids in the castle!”

 

“What!?” Wendy asked incredulously. “Let me see!” 

 

“Mabel, wait, I think I heard something in here.” One of the voices said.

 

“Ah crap, they’re coming. Everybody freeze!” Wendy ordered. All the objects-turned-people stopped what they were doing and pretended to be inanimate.

 

The doors opened with a creak and two young children, a boy and a girl, stepped in. They looked around the apparently empty entryway cautiously.

 

“Weird. I could’ve sworn…” The boy muttered as he looked around.

 

“This place sure is clean for being deserted for the past century.” Mabel observed.

 

_Thanks dude!_ _I put a lotta work into it!_ Soos wanted to say, but he’d gotten in pretty big trouble with his boss the last time he’d spoken to strangers in the castle, so he kept quiet.

 

Dipper found sawdust where they’d been repairing the floor. “I don’t think this place is deserted at all! Someone lives here!”

 

“D’you think it’s the ‘Stanford’ from Grandpa’s letter?” His sister asked excitedly.

 

“I dunno, maybe! We’ve gotta keep looking around, find whoever’s staying here and ask them if they’ve seen McGucket!”

 

“Yeah!”

 

The two kids raced down the hall, continuing to call out for their friend.

 

“ _ Crap _ .” Wendy hissed as soon as they were out of earshot.

 

Mabel and Dipper opened and closed each door they found, looking for someone, anyone, who might live there, but they couldn’t find any people. They’d almost reached the end of the hall when they heard a weak coughing coming from a dark staircase. The two of them shared and quick glance and descended cautiously. They were relieved to find Old Man McGucket, but not so relieved to find him locked up behind bars.

 

“Dipper! Mabel!” The inventor gasped, “What’re you two doin’ here!?”

 

“McGucket!” Mabel cried, running up to the prison and holding his hands through the bars. “We came looking for you when you didn’t come home from the fair!”

 

“What the heck happened?” Dipper asked. “Why are you locked up?”

 

“There’s not time fer that, you gotta get outta here!” McGucket urged them.

 

“What? No, we’re not leaving without you!” Mabel insisted.

 

“Don’t worry ‘bout me none, I’m already workin’ on a robut suit t’help me escape!” The old man assured them, “But you gotta leave afore  _ he _ finds out you’re here!”

 

“He? He who?” Dipper continued to ask questions. “Who else is living here?”

 

“ _ I’m _ livin’ here.” A rough voice growled behind them.

 

The young twins turned slowly around to find some great hulking shape standing in the shadows behind them. Dipper instinctively stepped between it and his sister, throwing out a protective arm.

 

“Wh-who are you?” The boy demanded, trying and failing to keep the terrified waver out of his voice. “What d-do you want with our friend?”

 

“This is my castle.” The shadowy figure informed them. “And this yahoo here thinks he can just waltz right in and stay the night without payin’ for room an’ board! He’s gonna stay here until he works off his debt!”

 

“H-how long’ll that take?” Mabel asked.

 

“Tch, I dunno, with hotel rates the way they are these days… and this is a nice place, mind you, it ain’t some cheap motel. A few weeks? Probably months if he keeps callin’ in sick.”

 

“He’s sick!?” The girl cried. McGucket’s continued coughing answered her question. “You can’t keep him here if he’s sick, he needs to see a doctor!”

 

“Not my problem.” The shadowy figure said cruelly. 

 

Dipper’s mind was racing. They had to find a way to help McGucket get out of here, but there seemed to be something else going on and the boy was determined to get to the bottom of it. With some quick thinking, he came up with a plan to free McGucket and get a chance to learn the castle’s mysteries.

 

“What if we worked off his debt?”

 

“Wha?” The master of the castle grunted in surprise.

 

Mabel caught on to what her brother was doing right away. “Yeah! If you think about it, you’re really getting a great deal here. Instead of one sickly old man who can’t work, you get two young able-bodied kids! Plus, we eat less!”

 

The shape in the shadows stared at them. “You’d really do that for this old kook?”

 

They both nodded firmly.

 

“You realize that if you do, you gotta commit to stay here at the castle, no gettin’ out of it, just the two of you,  _ alone _ , with  _ me _ .” The shadowy figure stepped forward into the light, revealing a huge beast covered in silvery fur, with sharp claws and a face like a gargoyle. The Beast of Gravity Falls.

 

“Whoa.” Dipper gasped.

 

“The legends were true!” Mabel whispered in awe.

 

“So whaddaya say kid, have we got a deal?” The Beast growled.

 

Dipper gulped down his fears and stretched forth his hand. “Deal.”

 

“Deal.” Mabel echoed, sticking out her own hand.

 

The Beast’s huge paw easily engulfed both the children’s hands as he shook on it. “Deal.”

He lumbered forward and unlocked the prison doors. 

 

“No, don’t do this, please!” McGucket begged, but the Beast easily scooped him up with one paw and carried him out of the dungeon.

 

“Wait! Can’t we at least say goodbye?” Mabel pleaded, but her words fell on deaf ears. The Beast continued out of the castle and pushed the old man into a beat-up red carriage.

 

“Please, let ‘em go, they’re jus’ kids!” McGucket implored one last time.

 

“Get yourself to a doctor, don’t waste what they gave you!” The Beast roared at him. The carriage rolled away on it’s own, with the old man locked inside.

 

As the monster watched the carriage go, his eyes grew sad. Welp, there he went. His first chance to break the spell in years and he was just letting the guy go. What’s more, he had the feeling he’d know this man once. That really could have helped his chances.

 

_ It’s for the best. _ He thought to himself.  _ Guy really does need to see a doctor. _

 

And now he had two kids to take care of! He didn’t know the first thing about taking care of kids! What was he going to do!? The Beast lumbered back into the castle in a daze. He almost didn’t notice the hammer bouncing up to him.

 

“Hey Boss, so, uh, question?”

 

“ _ What _ ?” He roared angrily.

 

“Well, since we’re gonna have the little dudes around for a while, I was thinkin’ maybe you should try bein’ a little nicer to them.”

 

“And why should I bother doin’ that!?”

 

“Well aside from it bein’ the right thing to do, they might have some lady relative who might be grateful, know what I mean?” Soos waggled his eyebrows.

 

The Beast rolled his eyes and continued down to the dungeon, where he found the boy trying to console his crying sister.

 

“We didn’t even get a chance to say goodbye…” she sobbed.

 

“It’s ok, Mabel. We’re gonna get through this together, just like with everything else.” Her brother assured her.

 

Feeling a bit awkward for interrupting this tender moment, the Beast cleared his throat to get their attention. It ended up sounding more like an angry wolf that he’d meant it to. The twins gaped up at him in fear.

 

“Uh, c’mon, let’s get you to your room.” He grunted.

 

“Yyyou mean we’re not staying in the dungeon?” The boy asked.

 

“Hah, you think I’m gonna make kids sleep in the dungeon? What do I look like to you, a monster?” The Beast chuckled. The kids continued to stare at him fearfully. “A monster?” He repeated. “Y-y’see it’s funny cuz I am. I am a monster.” Nothing. They didn’t even dare move. He sighed dejectedly. “I’m a monster.”

 

This was getting him nowhere. What was he thinking, trying to joke with these kids who were clearly terrified? Trying to get them to like him? It was never gonna happen.

 

“What are you waiting for, get your butts up those stairs!” He finally roared. With that the young twins shot away like they’d been fired out of a cannon. He trudged up the stairs behind them, running into Soos on the way up.

 

“Dude, no offense, but you’re kinda doing terrible at this.” The hammer informed him.

 

“I _ know _ .” The Beast hissed through clenched teeth. “Help me out here, ok?”

 

“Try making them feel at home here. Like invite them to dinner or something.”

 

“Right, right…” He grumbled and continued up to find the kids wandering around the second floor, getting dangerously close to the west wing. “Hey, keep out of there!” He shouted. “Your bedroom is _ this _ way.”

 

The two of them jumped back, clutching each other. “Why, what’s over there?” The boy asked, still curious despite the circumstances.

 

“ _ It’s forbidden! _ ” The Beast bellowed. The kids gulped. The three of them continued down the hall to a nice bedroom with a balcony window. “So uh… if there’s anything you need, just ask. Make yourselves at home. Dinner’s at six. Be there or go hungry.”

 

The young twins shuffled in nervously as the door slammed shut behind them. There was only one bed, but it was _ huge _ , and probably would have held four kids their size. Mabel flopped down on it and began to cry again, much more softly this time. Dipper hugged her, trying to be strong for her, but he could barely conceal his own tears.

* * *

 

Gideon sat in the local tavern, moping in his favorite chair.

 

"I can't believe she rejected me in front of everyone like that!" He muttered. "I ain't never been more humiliated in my life!"

 

"Gideon, you've gotta move on." Ghost-Eyes advised him. "There are plenty more girls that'd love to date you!"

 

"But none of them are like Mabel." The boy whined.

 

“Y’want some ice cream?” The thug offered.

 

“What’s the point? Nothin’s gonna make me feel better. I’m disgraced.”

 

Ghost-Eyes sighed and cleared his throat. “ _ Gosh it disturbs me to see you, Gideon, feeling so down in t- _ -”

 

“Ah-ah, no singing please Ghost-Eyes, I’m not in the mood.”

 

“Sorry guys, cancle the number.” He called to the other Tavern people. They all groaned in disappointment. 

 

“Look Gideon, all I'm trying to do is say you’re the most good-looking, talented, and all-around amazing guy in town! You can’t let one girl’s rejection get you down!”

 

“I don’t want to get over it!” The boy yelled angrily. “I swear that Mabel Pines will be mine! If only there was a way to get to her…”

 

Conveniently, at that moment the door was kicked open. Old Man McGucket stumbled into the tavern, coughing and hacking weakly.

 

“H-help! Y’gotta help me!” He pleaded. The people all stared at him like a mangy dog that’s just wandered in. “He--he’s got ‘em!”

 

“Who’s got what now?” Gideon asked in confusion.

 

“The Beast of Gravity Falls Castle!” The old man cried. “He’s got the kids! Dipper and Mabel! He-eh-he’s got ‘em!” He broke off into a fit of coughing.

 

“Oh _ sure _ !” One of the tavern goers, Mr. Poolcheck, laughed. “A big old beast with huge claws and teeth, right?”

 

“Yeah, a-an’ horns!” McGucket elaborated.

 

The people in the tavern all laughed uproariously. “Crazy Old Man McGucket!” One hooted, “Never know what kinda kooky nonsense is gonna come outta his mouth!”

 

“No, please, y’gotta believe me!” McGucket begged.

 

The kindly old lady who ran the tavern led him out gently. “Come along Fiddleford, let’s see a doctor about that cough.”

 

“B-but--”

 

“Please stop bothering my customers.”

 

Gideon watched them go thoughtfully. An idea began to form in his mind. “Gravity Falls Castle, eh? Ghost-Eyes, come with me. I think I’m gonna look at somethin’ in the library.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Enchanted books, hungry children, mysterious rooms

****

Dipper and Mabel had nearly fallen asleep on the bed when someone knocked on the door to their room.

 

“Who is it?” Mabel sniffed.

 

“My name’s Wendy, I work here.” A girl’s voice said from the other side of the door. “I just wanted to check up on you guys.”

 

“People  _ work _ here?” Dipper wondered, opening the door. An axe and a guitar stood there. “Wait, what!?”

 

“Hey.” Wendy said simply.

 

“Omigosh!” The boy exclaimed, taking a step back. “What-ho-how is this possible?” 

 

“Are you… _ magic _ ?” Mabel gasped in awe.

 

“Uh, duh!” The dresser across the room said with a rough voice. “People don’t go turning into household objects on their own! Right?”

 

“Wow!” Mabel grinned. “A magic dresser!”

 

“I’m Grenda!” The dresser said cheerfully.

 

“And a magic axe!”

 

“Yep.” Wendy replied.

 

“And… what are you? Some kind of gothic fiddle?”

 

“Uh, I’m a  _ guitar _ .” Robbie corrected her indignantly.

 

“Yeah but… but  _ why _ did this happen?” Dipper asked. “Where did this magic come from?”

 

“You sure you wanna know?” Wendy asked. “It’s kinda a long story. And not a happy one.”

 

“Oh boy, storytime!” Mabel cheered.

 

“Yeah! Storytime!” Grenda agreed.

 

“You already know the story.” Robbie reminded the dresser flatly.

 

“Yeah, but we don’t!” Dipper said. “Please, I just want to understand what’s going on here.”

 

“Ok, ok, I’ll tell you.” Wendy relented. “So thirty years ago this castle was pretty much deserted. But then this scientist guy came along and moved in, saying there was something special about this place. He hired a bunch of people to come help restore the castle and do research and stuff. Pretty soon a little community sprang up around the castle. That’s how we got here.

 

“But one day everything just falls apart. The guy’s brother comes by, supposedly to help with something, and his best friend runs out screaming like a madman. That night there’s some sort of huge fight and this evil chaos magic just spreads through the whole place. Next thing we know,  _ bam,  _ everyone’s been turned into junk!”

 

“Wait,  _ everyone _ who lived here thirty years ago was cursed?” Dipper asked, his eyes widening. “And-and they never left?”

 

“Of course not!” Robbie rolled his eyes. “We wouldn’t exactly be accepted in the outside world.”

 

“Omigosh, Mabel, he’s gotta still be here!” The boy turned to his sister excitedly.

 

“Who?” Grenda asked.

 

“Our great uncle!” Mabel explained, “When we first came out here, we were looking for our long-lost family! Our grandpa had a letter from his brother who moved to Gravity Falls Castle!”

 

“Here it is!” Dipper pulled it out of the pocket of his vest and unfolded it carefully to read. 

 

> “ _ Dear Sherman,  _
> 
>  
> 
> _ First of all congratulations to my youngest brother! I’m glad the wedding announcement found its way to my new address. Unfortunately I’m afraid I won’t be able to make it, as I am currently dealing with a major crisis here at Gravity Falls Castle. I won’t bore you with the details, just rest assured that if I were to leave now it would be disastrous. I still wish you and your new bride the best of luck.  _
> 
>  
> 
> _ Love, Stanford Pines.  _
> 
>  
> 
> _ PS: If you can, please forward the attached note to Stanley, I have no idea how to get a hold of him now but I desperately need his help. I know you’ve kept in touch with the family, so hopefully you’ll have better luck than I _ .”

 

He looked around at the enchanted objects in the room as he finished reading. “So, do you guys know a Stanford Pines?”

 

“I bet the curse is why he never made it to Grandpa Shermie’s wedding!” Mabel postulated. 

 

“I’m sorry guys, but I don’t remember that name.” Wendy told them, although she was giving them a funny look. The young twins’ faces fell. “But hey, there’s still hope. The curse didn’t just turn everyone into stuff, it also messed with all our memories. There are a lot of names and stuff I don’t remember.”

 

“Huh, that’s funny. Our friend Old Man McGucket has the same problem.” Dipper said thoughtfully.

 

“Oh, y’know what, I’ve gotta… uh… go do a thing, you guys get ready for dinner.” The axe said very suddenly. She crooked her blade around Robbie’s neck and pulled him out along with her.

 

“So, what do you guys wanna wear for dinner?” Grenda asked. She popped out a bright purple dress coat from her drawers. “Omigosh Dipper, you’d look so cute in this!”

 

“No thanks!” The boy cringed. “I’m not really hungry anyway.”

 

“How about you, Mabel?” Grenda showed off a fake-fur-trimmed pink dress. “You know you love it!”

 

“Ooh!” Mabel held it up to herself. “Cool! I don’t really feel like going to dinner either, let’s just play dress-up!”

 

“Uh, you guys _ sure _ you don’t wanna go to dinner?” The dresser asked nervously.

 

“Yes.” The twins affirmed in unison.

* * *

  
  


“Ok, so what’s rule number one?” Soos asked.

 

“Keep my temper under control.” The Beast recited.

 

“What’s rule number two?”

 

“Smile.” He pulled back his lips to show off a terrifying row of pointy fangs.

 

“Might wanna tone the smile down a bit…” the hammer advised.

 

The Beast relaxed his mouth a little, leaving a few less pointy teeth sticking out.

 

“Uh, maybe just smile with your mouth closed.” Soos finally decided. “Ok, and rule number three?”

 

The monster grumbled and rolled his eyes. “Look, I don’t think--”

 

“What is it?” Soos insisted.

 

“Ugh. No crusty old-man jokes.” The Beast harrumphed.

 

“There it is! Now let’s go invite them to dinner!”

 

Soos hopped up the stairs after his boss, and they stopped in front of the young twins’ door.

 

“Uh… so, you kids ready for dinner?” The Beast asked.

 

“We’re not coming!” The boy, what was his name? Dip… Dip-something, called belligerently. 

 

“What!?” The monster roared. “You come outta there or I’ll come in after you!”

 

“We’re on hunger-strike!” The girl called defiantly.

 

The Beast raised a clawed paw to break down the door.

 

“No, dude, trying to be nice, remember?” Soos stopped him

 

“Wh-bu- _ they’re _ the ones who’re bein’ difficult!”

 

“You gotta be gentle, dude!”

 

“Uhg! Would you like to come down to dinner?”

 

“No!” The kids chorused.

 

“Use the magic word.” The hammer instructed.

 

“...abra-cadabra?”

 

“He means ‘please’!” Mabel corrected through the door.

 

“Oh, right. P-please come to dinner. It’d uh, it’d mean a lot to me. Please.”

 

The kids whispered to each other behind the room, but thanks to his monstrously huge ears, the Beast could hear them anyway.

 

“What do you think? He  _ did _ say please.”

 

“No, Mabel, this is a bad guy! He kidnapped McGucket and locked him in a dungeon! We’re just gonna work here long enough to pay off the debt and find our uncle, then we’ll be gone. We’ve got no reason to do what this jerk wants.”

 

“Alright.” She agreed. 

 

“No thanks!” They yelled out the door.

 

“Grrrrah! Fine!” The Beast exploded, “Starve for all I care!” He stormed off in a huff, but didn’t get far before he ran into Wendy.

 

“There you are!” She exclaimed. “Oh man, I’ve been looking all over for you! You’re not gonna believe this!”

 

“This had better be good news.” The Beast grumbled.

 

“It is, trust me.” She assured them. “Those two are related to you!”

 

“Wha?”

 

“They’ve got this letter addressed to their grandpa, from his brother in Gravity Falls Castle!”

 

“That… that could be anyone.” The Beast shook his great shaggy head, “Besides, my brother is here.” Then again… he couldn’t remember much about his life before thirty years ago, but hadn’t he had a third, younger brother?

 

“But that’s not all! I didn’t recognize the name of the guy it was from! And I can’t remember it now. It’s like it just slipped away!” Wendy explained. “Sound familiar?”

 

It did. Any information about his and his brother’s past was impossible to re-learn. It simply slipped out of his mind whenever he tried. It was the same for everyone under the curse. Could he really be great uncle to these two brave kids, who offered up themselves to take the place of a sickly old man in the house of a terrifying monster? If it were true, it wasn’t good news, it was terrible! It was just another thing Bill’s curse had taken away from him. A family he would never have.

 

“It’s gotta be you and your brother, right?” The axe asked for confirmation. She took her boss’s silence as a ‘yes’. “Oh man, I can’t wait to tell them, they’re gonna flip!”

 

“Don’t  _ any _ of you breath a word of this to those kids!” The Beast growled. 

 

“Why not?” Robbie asked, “I mean, they looked pretty eager to find their family.”

 

“Yeah, let’s tell them that their mysterious missing family member is either a book that can’t move or talk and is falling apart, or the big scary monster that kidnapped their friend! That’ll make  _ everything _ better!” The Beast rumbled sarcastically. He stalked off to the west wing. “Robbie, you keep an eye on those two. Lemme know if they leave their room.”

 

“Aw man, why do _ I _ have to?” The guitar whined.

 

“Shut up and do it, twerp!”

* * *

 

The Beast bounded up the stairs, rage building. He needed to get away from the others before it burst out of him in a fit of fury. As soon as he turned the corner out of their sight, he grabbed a nearby tapestry and ripped it down with his claws. Next he found an already demolished, non-living couch and stomped it into even smaller pieces, throwing what remained against the wall.

 

“It’s not enough to take my brother from me!?” He kicked over a suit of armor, “It’s not enough to make innocent people suffer for our stupidity!?” He dug his claws into the banister. “He’s gotta take this from me too?” He broke a chair in two. “Those kids don’t want anything to do with me! I tried to be nice but… but it’s hopeless. Of course they hate me, look at me!” He pounded his fists against the stone wall. 

 

_ Well, not like my family hating me is anything new. _ He thought glumly.

 

With that out of his system, the Beast dragged himself into his bedroom. Everything in here was also destroyed from his many fits of rage, except one table that sat next to a tall window. On that table, under a clear dome of glass, sat a red book with a large, polished gold handprint set into the cover. Two things were odd about this handprint. First, it had six fingers rather than the expected five, and second, in its polished surface it didn’t show the reflection of the room, but the image of a man. The man had a strong jaw and cleft chin, a large nose, and brown eyes. The same deep earthy brown as the Beast. These eyes were currently scrutinizing the Beast with concern.

 

The monster looked down at his feet sheepishly under that gaze. He realized too late his tantrum had drifted a little too close to the bedroom. “Uh… it’s been a long day.” He excused himself. “You’re not gonna believe this.” 

 

The reflection looked at him expectantly. 

 

“So, uh, you may have noticed there’s been a lot of commotion around here lately. We’ve had more trespassers in the last two days than in the last twelve years!” 

 

The reflection nodded. 

 

“So first this old coot shows up and won’t pay to stay the night. Then a couple of kids show up looking for him and they say _ they’ll _ work if off for him. But here’s the real crazy thing, they show Wendy this letter to their grandpa from someone who used to live here. And she thinks since she can’t remember the name of the guy who wrote it it has to be one of us! Hah, crazy, right?” The Beast laughed uncomfortably. “But… but we  _ did _ have a third brother, didn’t we?” 

 

The man in the book, now deep in thought, nodded again. Slowly this time.

 

“There’s really only one way to know for sure without, y’know, outright  _ stealin’ _ the thing from them.” The Beast continued. “Not that I couldn’t do it, it’s just I’ve already given the runts enough reason to hate me.” He carefully lifted the glass dome and gingerly grasped the book, being careful not to scratch, tear, or poke it with his claws. “Show me the letter.” He said.

 

The image in the polished gold changed to show the boy sitting on the bed, still staring at the letter, as if some new clue would appear now that he he was in Gravity Falls Castle. Beside him sat his sister, who was chatting with the dresser.

 

“Is it scary working for that big hairy Beast?” Mabel asked.

 

“Oh the boss isn’t so bad!” Grenda assured her. “I know he puts on a show of being this ferocious monster, but he’s actually just a big softie! He wouldn’t hurt-- well, I take that back, he’s kind of a brawler, but he’d only fight someone if they were asking for it.”

 

“He seems like a pretty big jerk to me.” Dipper said bitterly. Mabel nodded beside him.

 

The Beast tried to ignore their conversation and focused on the letter in the boy’s hand. It was his brother’s handwriting, no doubt about it. As the only form of communication they had left, he’d recognize it anywhere. “So it’s true…” he sighed in defeat.

 

The image of the kids faded and his brother’s reflection returned. The man mimed opening a book. 

 

The Beast shook his head and tried not to look at three long claw marks along the edge of the cover. “Not today, my nerves are too fried… look at how my hands are shaking!”

 

The reflection gave an angry frown and mimed opening a book more earnestly.

 

“Alright, alright.” The monster relented and carefully flipped open the book. Almost immediately new words started appearing in the margin of a page about haunted doors.

 

> _ What are their names? Why did the come here? Never mind I want to see them myself! I want to talk to them! _

 

“What? Are you crazy!?” The Beast exclaimed. “I barely trust  _ myself  _ to touch you! You think I’m gonna let a couple of  _ kids _ handle you!? Do you know what kids do to stuff? They break stuff is what they do!”

 

> _ Just tell them who and what I am and they’ll be careful. I’ll be fine. _

 

“No way! I’m not risking it!”

 

> _ They’re not just any kids, they’re our family! Stop being unreasonable! _

 

“I’m not gonna argue with you about this! My decision’s final!” The Beast roared, slamming the book shut. The reflection of his brother glared at him, but he didn’t care. He stormed out of the room and back into the hall, intent on wreaking more furniture.

* * *

  
  


“And I was like ‘That’s what I said!’ And he just yelled at me!” Robbie complained to his girlfriend, a pink and purple quill-pen named Tambry.

 

“That sucks honey.” She said flatly, barely looking up from the letter she was writing.

 

Dipper and Mabel snuck quietly past the preoccupied people-turned-objects, intending to do some exploring and maybe grab a bite to eat. They were beginning to regret their decision to go on hunger-strike. They made it all the way down to the kitchen before they were caught.

 

“Hey dudes!” Soos greeted them cheerfully as they passed. The young twins jumped in surprise.

 

“Uuuuh, we’re not here!” Mabel stammered, “You’re dreaming!”

 

“You don’t gotta worry, dudes, I won’t tell the boss you were down here.” The hammer assured them. “The guy kinda needs some alone-time right now.”

 

“What are you doing down in the kitchen?” Dipper asked. “That’s kind of a weird place for a work-hammer.”

 

“Oh, well the cook got kinda mad when he found out nobody was coming for the dinner he made and threw a bunch of pots and pans and stuff at the door.” Soos explained. The kids frowned guiltily. “I’m just here fixin’ it. Like I do. What about you dudes, what’re you doin’ down here?”

 

“We got hungry.” The boy admitted.

 

“Oh! Well, I’m sure the cook didn’t throw everything at the wall! Let’s see what’s left.”

 

They stepped into the kitchen, which was mostly empty except for the cook, who was apparently the stove, and, surprisingly, Wendy.

 

“Hey dudes, nice to see you out and about.” She greeted them. “Buuut, isn’t Robbie supposed to be keeping an eye on you two?

 

“We miiiiiight have snuck past him while he was distracted by his girlfriend.” Mabel admitted. “But we were hungry!”

 

“Well, let’s see what we’ve got left-over.” Wendy looked over at the serving table. “Hmm, beef ragout, cheese souffle, pie and pudding  _ en flambe _ … some  _ grey _ stuff…”

 

“Oh, you dudes should try that!” Soos insisted, “It’s delicious!”

 

Mabel dipped her finger in and then tasted it. “Mmm!” She hummed in approval. Dipper just stacked a tower of cheese and crackers. They’d just started into a desert of pie when Robbie burst in franticly.

 

“Omigosh have you guys seen tho--” he glanced over to see the twins sitting at the table. “Oh, phew, thought I was toast there.”

 

“Yeah, sorry about that.” Dipper apologize, “We were hungry.”

 

“Alright, well now you’ve eaten and it’s bed time. Come on.” The guitar ordered.

 

“But we’re not tired!” Mabel insisted. “Let’s go exploring!”

 

“Yeah!” Dipper agreed. “I want to learn more about this castle.”

 

“What do I look like to you, a tour-guide?” Robbie deadpanned.

 

Soos gasped. “Did someone say  _ tour _ !?”

 

Wendy rolled her eyes fondly “Aaand here he goes.”

 

“Dudes, you are looking at the unofficial official tour-guide of Gravity Falls Castle!” Soos proclaimed proudly. “I’d love to show you around the castle!”

 

“Yay!” The kids cheered, following the hopping hammer out the door. Robbie dragged along reluctantly.

 

As they walked down the hall they were greeted by a sniffing and snorting footstool that snuffled the ground around their feet.

 

“Why hello there friend!” Mabel giggled.

 

“Oh yeah, that’s Waddles. He used to be a pig.” Soos informed them.

 

Mabel gasped. “Shut. Up!”

 

Dipper rolled his eyes fondly. “Oh boy, now you’ve done it.”

 

“What?”

 

“Mabel really really  _ really _ loves pigs.”

 

The girl let out a high-pitched squeal and swept the footstool up in her arms. “I’m gonna hug you and never let you go!”

 

They continued on and Soos talked about the process of restoring the castle.

 

“So when we looked under the floorboards here it turned out we had mildew, so we had to tear out the whole wall! That’s pretty tough to do without arms! And the weird thing was we kept on finding triangles carved into the support beams. And these stairs! Hu-boy, they had a lot of wear and tear! I fell through a step once, landed in the laundry room, luckily. Nearly gave the laundry lady a heart attack though.”

 

“What’s up those stairs?” Dipper asked, remembering when the Beast had yelled that it was forbidden.

 

“Nothing!” Robbie said quickly.

 

“Uh, you mean besides the Boss’s quarters? Not much dudes. It’s really boring. You definitely don’t wanna go up there. Just, like, dust and stuff.” Soos laughed nervously.

 

Mabel peered skeptically at him. “That’s what grownups say when they’re trying to hide something.”

 

“Haha-hide something? Why would we wanna hide something?” Robbie joined in the nervous laughter. “There’s nothing to hide! No hiding here!”

 

“Then why’s it forbidden?” Dipper asked with his arms crossed.

 

“It’s… forbiddenly boring?” The guitar offered lamely.

 

“Uh, yeah!” Soos agreed. “I bet you dudes would much rather see the, uh, greenhouse, or the ballroom, or the library…”

 

“You guys have a library?” Dipper asked excitedly.

 

“You guys have a ballroom?” Mabel gasped ecstatically.

 

“Yeah!” Soos cheered. “Let’s go see them! Right now!”

 

The people-turned-objects hopped down the stairs, and at first the kids followed. But then Waddles jumped out of Mabel’s arms and waddled back up towards the West Wing.

 

“I guess it’s fate.” Mabel shrugged and followed. Dipper grinned, right behind her.

 

Turning the corner into the West Wing was like stepping into a completely different castle. While all the other rooms the kids had seen were old and worn but well-kept, this hall was in complete disarray, with broken chunks of furniture cluttering the ground and claw marks in all the woodwork. Dipper was beginning to understand  _ why _ this area was forbidden, but it just egged his adventurous spirit on. Still, he stepped closer to Mabel and held loosely to her arm. She caught hold of his vest in return.

 

The further they went, the worse the destruction got. A broken mirror, which Mabel enjoyed making funny fractured faces in, and a painting of a sailboat ripped almost beyond recognition. A tapestry with a strange, one-eyed triangle symbol on it, which was also ripped to shreds, and apparently burned in some places, especially where the eye had been.

 

“This place is neat!” Mabel commented as they reached the end of the hall. 

 

The door to the bedroom stood wide open, where they could see a bed that had obviously been wrecked in the past, but was now heaped with blankets and pillows to make a sort of enormous nest. The state of the room was almost as bad as the hall, except for one corner by the window. In that corner stood a small table, holding a tattered red book under a glass dome. Dipper was immediately drawn to it.

 

“Why is this the only thing that’s untouched?” He wondered, looking at the old book. “It’s gotta be valuable, if it’s kept under glass. Maybe it’s some sort of ancient text!” He reached for the glass casing.

 

Waddles squealed and ran out of the room.

 

“Uh, maybe you  _ shouldn’t _ touch it.” Mabel advised.

 

“Mabel, come on, this is  _ me _ we’re talking about.” Dipper assured her. “I know how to handle books. I just want to see why it’s so important.”

 

He picked it up carefully and flipped through the pages. They contained sketches and notes about many magical things.

 

“Aww, it’s just somebody’s notebook.” Mabel blew a raspberry. “It’s not even filled up…” 

 

“It’s not just a notebook, it’s a research journal!” Dipper exclaimed excitedly, pulling the book closer to his face. “Omigosh this is so cool! It’s like whoever wrote this was trying to use science to understand magic!”

 

Mabel peered over her brother’s shoulder and saw words appear on the page out of nowhere. _ Greetings! _ It said.

 

“Whoa, Dipper look!” She grabbed the book from her brother roughly, making a small tear in the page’s binding.

 

“Mabel!” Dipper reprimanded her. 

 

“Oops.” she whispered.

 

Suddenly the kids heard a mighty roar just down the hall. They hastily placed the book back and tried to make a run for it, but the Beast had bound to the door in an instant. They were trapped. In another leap the Beast had jumped over them and slammed the glass dome back on the table, wrapping an arm around it protectively.

 

“DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA WHAT YOU’VE DONE?!” The monster bellowed. “YOU HURT HIM!!”

 

“We’re sorry!” Mabel cried.

 

“W-we didn’t m-mean to hurt anyone!” Dipper stammered, standing defensively in front of her.

 

“ _ GET OUT! GET OOOUUUUT _ !” He screamed.

 

They didn’t need to be told twice. They’d already scrambled half-way down the hall by the second ‘get’. And they continued to run right down the stairs and toward the front door.

 

“Where did you two go?” Robbie asked as they rushed past him.

 

“And where are you off to so fast now?” Wendy asked.

 

“Away from here!” Dipper said firmly. “I don’t care about any stupid debt, we’ll sell our kidneys if we have to, but we’re  _ not _ staying here!”

 

"Are you guys crazy!? It’s the middle of the night!  _ And _ it’s the first snow storm of the year!” Wendy called after them, but they’d already flown out the door.

 

The Beast regretted his decision the moment he saw the kids panic. But they were too fast. By the time he realized what he'd done, they were already heading out the door. He buried his head in his paws and clawed at his hair.

 

"Grah, no,  _ stupid!  _ Why do I have to ruin everything?"

 

_ I told 'em not to come up here!  _ He rationalized,  _ They should've known better! And they hurt him! _

 

With that thought, he turned to check on his brother's book form. He flipped open to the damaged page. The rip was small, but the unexpected pain had scared the Beast out of his skin.

 

"Are you OK?" The monster asked.

 

> _ I'm fine.  _ The writing appeared in the margins.  _ You're the one who over-reacted! You scared them half to death! _

 

"They were the ones poking their noses in where they didn't belong!" The Beast defended himself. "And you're the one who suffered for it."

 

> _ "Suffered" is a bit overdramatic. I've had much worse. From you, no less. _

 

The Beast growled. That was low, bringing up his early days when he hadn't gotten the hang of using his claws. "That was an accident!"

 

> _ Exactly! So was this! Those poor kids don't even know what I am, they didn't understand what they were doing. This wouldn't have happened if you'd done what I said and let me talk to them. _

 

The monster rolled his eyes. "Yeah, yeah, everything'd be just hunky-dory if I always did what you said."

 

> _ Is this really the best time to have this argument? _

 

"But I'm just too  _ stubborn _ an’ _ stupid _ to listen." He continued to growl, ignoring his brother's words once again.

 

> _ Stop.  _ The writing commanded.  _ We can have this argument any time, but if you don't go after those kids now we'll lose them forever. _
> 
>  

These words sobered the Beast and for once he listened. He swallowed his anger and let the argument drop. Wrapping a thick traveling cloak around him, he hurried down the stairs and out the door, determined to find the young twins before they got too far.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Angry gnomes, grappling hook, creepy map

Snow was falling in thick flakes around them as the kids ran through the woods. It was dark and cold, and the flurries didn’t help visibility any. It was becoming clear that this wasn’t the best idea either of them had ever had.

 

“Maybe we should go back?” Mabel suggested. “At least until tomorrow, when it’s stopped snowing hopefully.”

 

Dipper shook his head. Going back now would make it look like he didn’t know what he was doing, and he  _ hated _ that. “It’s too dangerous there.” He reasoned. “Even if everyone else is nice, that Beast has no control of his temper, he could snap at any time! I mean, you saw that, right? We were just looking at a book and he went berserk! Yeah, we shouldn’t’ve been up there looking at it, but that doesn’t give him an excuse to get violent!”

 

And so they continued on through the building snow, pulling their clothes tighter around them. But they weren’t alone in the woods. They kept seeing flashes of red and blue flitting between the trees around them. Something was moving around through the underbrush. The young twins tried to ignore it at first. Perhaps if they didn’t bother it, it wouldn’t bother them. Unfortunately, they were wrong.

 

“Well well well, isn’t this just the saddest thing I ever saw!” A voice said pityingly. The kids looked around for who could be talking. “Ehehm, down here.”

 

They turned their gaze downward to find a tiny man with a bushy brown beard, dressed in a pointy red hat and blue overalls.

 

“Jeff the gnome, at your service!” He introduced himself. “We couldn’t help but notice a beautiful girl and her… what is this guy, your boyfriend?”

 

“ _ Brother _ .” Dipper corrected vehemently.

 

“ _ Phew _ ! Ha, right, brother!” Jeff repeated. “Anyway, we couldn’t help but notice you running around in the snow in the middle of the night, and we thought we might offer you someplace warm to stay the night!”

 

“Oh! Thanks!” Mabel said gratefully, but Dipper pulled her back.

 

“What’s the catch?” He asked skeptically.

 

The gnome laughed nervously. “Ah, it’s not even a big deal, barely worth mentioning! We just need a new gnome Queen is all!”

 

Dipper frowned. Yep, he’d known there had to me something. “And you’re sure you wouldn’t take anything else in exchange for shelter, like, I dunno, one of our first-born children, or…”

 

“Nope! It’s gnome Queen or nothing!” Jeff insisted.

 

“Then I’m afraid we have to decline your offer.” Mabel said as kindly as possible while still looking very grossed out.

 

“I understand.” Jeff turned back to the woods. “...She’s playing hard to get boys, plan B!”

 

Suddenly the entire forest was swarming with gnomes. They jumped out from behind every tree and bush, armed with miscellaneous tools and junk that looked a little familiar to the young twins.

 

“Hey Dipper, I think we solved the mystery of what happened to McGucket’s lost tools and invention!” Mabel said, trying to make light of the situation.

 

“Great…” He muttered, backing up closer to her as the gnomes closed in.

 

“As you can see, we have you vastly outnumbered!” Jeff proclaimed. “Now will you be the gnome Queen?”

 

“No!” Mabel insisted. “What is it with psychos always wanting to date me?”

 

“Hey! We are not psychos!” One of the gnomes complained.

 

“Speak for yourself, Carlos!” Jeff cackled madly “Attack!”

 

The gnomes charged the kids, who in turn fought back. Mabel punched some of them straight out of the air, while Dipper picked up a branch and started whacking them. This seemed to work at first, but there were just too many gnomes for their limited tools to handle. So the girl reached into her apron pocket and pulled out a curious device.

 

“Grappling hook!” She shouted, firing a heavy metal hook attached to a rope into the crowd of gnomes. The creatures scattered along the projectile's trajectory, leaving a path for the kids to escape.

 

“Thanks Mabel.” Dipper complimented her as they fled, when suddenly another gnome jumped on his head. His sister punched it off. There were still more of the things! “We need to get somewhere these guys can’t reach us!” 

 

He pointed up towards the top of a towering tree. Mabel nodded to show she understood. As soon as they were close enough she fired the grappling hook up and snagged one of the higher branches, pulling the twins up and away from the crazy gnomes.

 

“Ha! Let’s see those tiny suckers get up  _ here _ !” Dipper laughed triumphantly, before shivering in the wind. “Now we just have to figure out a way not to die of exposure…”

 

Mabel looked down and her eyes grew wide. “Uh… we might  _ not _ have to worry about that…”

 

The gnomes had banded together, quite literally, to form one giant gnome-construct. It grew as more and more gnomes were added, eventually reaching the height of the tree the young twins were hiding in. It reached out and grabbed one child in each hand. The kids clung to one another, desperately resisting the forces pulling them apart.

 

“No! Dipper!” The girl cried.

 

“Mabel!” He called back to her.

 

The gnome construct managed to pull them apart, but then it started shaking. Almost as if its base was becoming unstable. The kids heard an unearthly roar from below and looked down. It was the Beast, savagely attacking the giant gnome. The monster clawed away, pulling gnomes out of their place and sending them flying with a good left-hook. Soon he’d gotten rid of enough that the gnome construct began to crumble. Which unfortunately meant the kids were falling too.

 

“Aaaagh!” They screamed as the gnomes around them lost their grip. Luckily Mabel had the presence of mind to use her grappling hook again. She swung by Dipper and caught him just in the nick of time. She lowered them to the ground, but a crowd of angry gnomes was waiting for them. Soon they were practically buried in pointy hats and beards, as the creatures tried to tear the young twins away from each other.

 

With an animalistic roar, the Beast charged into the gnomes, sending them every-which-way, fighting tooth and claw. The gnomes fought back fiercely, biting and kicking and scratching and beating with the small tools and scraps they had stolen. They tore through the cloak the Beast wore and got under his fur, trying their best to draw blood.

 

Deciding the gnomes were getting too intense, the Beast scooped up one kid under each arm and fled back towards the castle. The gnomes regrouped and gave chase. He pushed himself harder as the ground shook from the giant gnome’s footsteps.

 

“Bring back our Queen, you monster!” Jeff yelled from his place at the tip of the gnome construct’s hat. 

 

The Beast panted. “Not on your life!” 

 

The kids watched the gnomes draw closer. Luckily the castle was getting closer too. Once the gnomes caught sight of it, they froze in their giant steps. “It’s the triangle’s castle!” One cried. The gnome construct dissolved quickly, as the creatures fled back into the forest. The three of them were left alone at the front gate. With the adrenaline of the chase wearing off, the Beast dropped the young twins and promptly collapsed. 

* * *

  
  


Gideon and Ghost-Eyes snuck into the library. It was late at night and the librarian had long since gone to bed. Of course, no one would ever suspect widdle ol’ Gideon of breaking into  _ anywhere _ .

 

The creepy boy looked around, finding the map section and looking for a very specific, very old map. Gideon had first found the map here two years ago, when he’d been looking for something to help his father’s merchant routes. It was on this map that he first realized there might be something to the old stories of Gravity Falls Castle. The castle was clearly marked in a yellow triangle, unlike the newer maps that left it off altogether, and strange words were written along the edge.

 

Gideon had always wondered what would happen if he read them out loud.

 

“Triangulum, entangulum. Vene foris dominus mentium. Vene foris videntis omnium!” He recited. 

 

Ghost-Eyes looked at the kid hesitantly. “Uh, what are you doing?”

 

“Trying to learn more about Gravity Falls Castle!” Gideon explained, when suddenly their candle blew out. Suddenly, Gideon’s eyes began to glow blue, and he babbled another strange incantation. “Egassem sdrawkcab. Egassem sdrawkab! Egassem sdrawkab!”

 

There was a flash of light, and when it faded, the world was washed out in black and white. A triangle with a single eye and fancy hat floated before them

 

“OH, YOUR TIMING COULDN’T BE MORE PERFECT, KID!” It said with a strange, distorted voice.

 

“Wh-what are you?” Gideon asked nervously.

 

“NAME’S BILL CIPHER! AND WHAT ARE YOU TWO, SOME SORTA COMEDY ACT?” The triangle laughed. “JUST KIDDING, I KNOW WHO YOU ARE, GIDEON, AND I KNOW WHAT YOU WANT. YOU WANNA KNOW ABOUT THE BEAST OF GRAVITY FALLS!”

 

“You can tell us about Gravity Falls Castle?” Ghost-Eyes asked in wonder. No one knew anything about that castle, it had been deserted for generations!

 

“YEAH, WHO DO YOU THINK HAD THE CASTLE BUILT IN THE FIRST PLACE? I KNOW MORE ABOUT THE MAGIC IN GRAVITY FALLS THAN EVEN THE BEAST!”

 

“The Beast!” Gideon hissed. “It kidnapped my true love!”

 

“HA! ‘LOVE’ IS JUST CHEMICALS IN YOUR BRAIN, KID. BUT LUCKILY FOR YOU I’M INTERESTED IN SEEING THAT BEAST GO DOWN TOO, SO I’LL LET YOU IN ON A LITTLE SECRET.”

 

“Yes… yes what is it?” The boy asked excitedly.

 

“Uh, Gideon, you sure it’s a good idea,” Ghost-Eyes pulled his boss away, whispering to him “trusting a triangle you summoned out of nowhere by reading old incantations on a map?”

 

“Don’t ruin this for me, Ghost-Eyes! This is my chance to finally win Mabel!” The boy insisted, pushing his lackey away. “Tell me your secret, Bill!”

 

“THE BEAST HAS A WEAKNESS.” Bill’s body changed from solid yellow to a picture of a tattered red book, with a golden, six-fingered handprint inlaid in the cover. “HE CAN SHRUG OFF NORMAL INJURIES PRETTY EASILY, BUT IF YOU TEAR PAGES OUT OF THIS BOOK?  HO-HO BOY, THAT’LL HURT HIM ON MORE LEVELS THAN ONE! LEAVING YOU TO SWEEP IN AND TAKE AWAY YOUR WOULD-BE GIRLFRIEND. AND HER BROTHER. IT’S IMPORTANT YOU TAKE BOTH OF THEM AWAY FROM THE BEAST.”

 

“Yeah, yeah, sure.” Gideon agreed. “And then Mabel will finally be mine!”

 

“YOU KEEP TELLING YOURSELF THAT, KID.” Bill said. “HAVE FUN STORMING THE CASTLE! YOULIVEINAFICTIONALWORLDOFAFICTIONALWORLDOFAFICTIONALWORLDROBESPIERRUINSTHEREVELOTION--BYE!”

 

With that, Bill disappeared in a flash of light, and color returned to the world. Gideon giggled maniacally. “I’ll save Mabel, and then she’ll  _ have _ to love me! Who knew all we’d need is a book?”

 

“Uh, and where are we supposed to get this book, exactly?” Ghost-Eyes asked.

 

“... Dangit, I knew I was forgettin’ somethin’.”

* * *

  
  


The Beast awoke groggily in his favorite chair, in front of a roaring fire. “Uhg, everything hurts…” He grumbled.

 

“He’s waking up!” An excited voice cried, much too loudly and much too close to his ear. He flinched. The Beast cracked an eye open to find Mabel hovering above him, and her brother looking over her shoulder while he tried to wash the Beast’s wounds.

 

“ _ Ngh _ , how’d I get back in here?” He wondered. Most of the people-turned-objects around here didn’t even have arms, much less the strength to lift a half-ton Beast. Surely these kids couldn’t…

 

“Mabel’s  _ a lot _ stronger than she looks.” Dipper said simply. He took a wet rag and tried to wash a large scrape along the Beast’s arm, but the monster pulled his arm back almost immediately.

 

“Ow! Geez, kid, what’ve you got in that water, salt!?”

 

“It’s just soap!” The boy insisted. “And what’re you--ugh! Are you actually, _ literally licking your wounds _ !?”

 

“Uh… I dunno how to answer that.” The Beast said blankly, pulling his tongue back in.

 

“Seriously, that’s disgusting!”

 

“Here, let me see it.” Mabel took his arm and went over it gently with her own wet cloth. 

 

The Beast still flinched at the pain, but he tried to stay still enough for them to bandage him up. It had been a long time since anyone had been able to do that for him. That thought made his mind wander to his brother, who was without a doubt upstairs, in  _ exactly _ as much pain as he was, wondering what on earth was going on. Wondering if the Beast was safe.

 

“I gotta go.” He tried to sit up, but the kids pulled him back.

 

“ _ You set your fluffy butt back in that chair! _ ” Mabel commanded.

 

“You’re still hurt!” Dipper reminded him.

 

“Well I wouldn’t  _ be _ hurt if you two little gremlins hadn’t run off!”

 

“We wouldn’t have run away like that if you hadn’t make it seem like you were gonna  _ attack _ us!” The boy defended.

 

“I wouldn’t’ve had to if you’d kept outta the West Wing like I told you to!” The Beast scholded.

 

“Well you still need to learn to control your temper!” Mabel countered.

 

The Beast sat back down sullenly. “Yeah, so I’ve been told.”

 

The three of them sat in awkward silence for a few seconds as the fire crackled.

 

“So, uh, thanks… for saving our lives back there…” Dipper finally mumbled.

 

The Beast looked at him in surprise. “Don’t mention it.” He replied automatically, but inside his mind was whirling. He couldn’t remember the last time anyone had  _ actually thanked _ him for something, and something told him that wasn’t due to the curse’s effect on his memory. A glowing feeling unlike any he’d ever felt before grew within him. Maybe it was because the kids had cleaned his wounds, or maybe it was something else, but suddenly he didn’t feel the pain as much.

* * *

  
  


The pain had been unexpected, as it usually was. Being confined to a small table in the West Wing with only single window overlooking the castle grounds to look out of, the man trapped in the Journal didn’t typically have any warning that his brother was about to be hurt. Whether it was something as minor as a stubbed toe or as serious as breaking a few knuckles after punching a wall, the pain came out of nowhere.

 

He didn’t want to be a masochist, but as, well, _ painful _ as the pain was, it was the only physical sensation he could still feel. So the occasional bumps and bruises were almost a relief. A reminder that he was indeed still real, still a living thing, despite all appearances to the contrary. More serious pain scared him though. It made him worry what he reckless and occasionally self-destructive brother was up to.

 

So when he’d first started feeling pain after the Beast left to find the kids, he was _ terrified _ . This was the first time in  _ years _ the Beast had left the castle, and the pain just kept on coming, one sharp bite or jab after another. It felt like he was being attacked! Not since the first few months after their transformation had he felt pain like this, back when the Beast was clumsily adjusting to his new animalistic body and razor-sharp claws.

 

Eventually the pain subsided to more of a dull throb, which the man in the Journal supposed was a good thing. It meant his brother was still alive. He waited an hour or so, trying not to let his mind wander to all the terrible things that could have happened. After a while some more sharp pains returned, but they weren’t nearly as bad as before. There was almost a cleansing quality to it. Perhaps the Beast was getting patched up. He hoped so, at least.

 

Finally, he heard the familiar clack of claws on stone as his brother lumbered down the hall.

 

“I’m ok.” The Beast reassured him as soon as he entered the room. “Ran into some crazy gnomes. I would’ve checked back with you as soon as I got back, but the kids were pretty dead-set on fixin’ me up.”

 

The man in the Journal looked over his brother, who sported a number of bandages. His usually fluffy silver fur was matted and mussed up. His monstrous face was tired but happy. All-in-all, he looked worse-for-wear, but not seriously damaged.

 

“How’re you holding up though?” The Beast asked. “I know that couldn’t’ve been fun for you.”

 

The reflection of the man grimaced and made a  _ so-so _ gesture. He hadn’t been in this much pain in a while, but he’d live. It would pass.

 

“Heh, yeah, everything hurts, I know.” The Beast replied, slightly misunderstanding his brother’s meaning.

 

The reflection rolled his eyes and mimed opening a book.

 

The silvery monster shook his head, his expression becoming closed-off. “Not tonight, I’m tired. I just want to sleep. Maybe tomorrow.”

 

The Beast curled up in his nest of bedding and fell asleep. The man trapped in the Journal watched with a mixture of sadness and frustration. He knew his brother must be exhausted from the injuries, and needed his rest. He had a good excuse tonight. But he did this  _ every _ night!

 

_ I just wish he would talk to me… _ The man thought, as he usually did.

* * *

  
  


The Beast was surprised to find the kids waiting for him in the dining room for breakfast. After refusing to come to dinner yesterday, he wasn’t expecting to see them for any meal. Kids got hungry, he supposed.

 

“Hey, we saved you some oatmeal!” Mabel greeted him. “There were pancakes, but me and Dipper ate them all!”

 

“I only had two, you’re the one who had half-a-dozen!” Dipper corrected.

 

The Beast plopped down in a chair across from them. “Thanks, I guess.” He scooped a finger into the oatmeal and began gobbling up the breakfast messily. The young twins stared at him bemusedly. 

 

“You ever heard of a spoon?” Dipper laughed.

 

“ _ Feh _ , who’s got time for that?” THe Beast shrugged, although he suddenly felt self-conscious about eating with his hands.

 

Mabel took notice of his discomfort and took a hold of her own bowl. “That looks like fun!” She grabbed a handful of oatmeal and shoved it in her mouth. It splattered everywhere, including over Dipper.

 

“Ah, hey!” He laughed and flicked a spoonful of his own oatmeal back. Before long they were all involved in a very messy food-fight, with oatmeal covering everyone and everything. The Beast laughed as he managed to dump his whole bowl onto both of them at once. Mabel wrung the oatmeal out of her hair and threw it back at him with a teasing giggle. Dipper started to get creative with using bowls, plates, and silverware to make small catapults.

 

Eventually they all just collapsed into a sticky, giggling pile under the table. It was hard to believe just yesterday they’d arrived here looking for their friend.

 

“Heh… yikes.” The Beast huffed as he surveyed the damage to the dining room. “This is gonna take a lot of cleaning up.” He turned his gaze to the kids, who looked like nothing so much as a pair of gooey grey blobs. “Sheesh, not nearly as much as you two though! Better go get yourselves into the bath.”

 

“Aw, do we have to?” Dipper whined.

 

“Well I guess if you’d rather lick yourself clean like I do…” The Beast teased.

 

“ _ Uhg _ , you’re so gross!” The boy giggled.

 

“Well, go on, hop to it, you two’ve got a lot of work to do today.” The silvery monster ushered them on towards the bathroom. He in turn made his way up to the West Wing. The reflection in the Journal gave him an odd look as he licked his fingers clean.

 

“What? I’ll take a real bath later when the kids are done. I’m just cleaning up as best I can now. Or do you  _ want  _ bits of oats stuck to your pages?” The Beast asked teasingly.

 

> _ You’re so gross! What is wrong with you?  _ Were the first words that greeted him as he opened the book to one of the blank pages.
> 
>  

“Hahah, yeah, that’s a list that could go on for hours.” The Beast chuckled darkly. “So, uh, you wanted to talk to me last night?”

 

The man trapped in the Journal was stunned. This never happened. Even on the rare occasions where his brother did talk to him soon after he asked to, it was almost never about a conversation the Beast had previously shut down. Truthfully, the man in the Journal had mostly just wanted to talk through the pain they both were experiencing, but now that had passed. There was still something on his mind though.

 

> _ I take it you brought those kids back safely last night, and that they’re still with us now. _

 

The Beast chuckled again, fondly this time. “Ah, yeah, we had a bit of fun this morning.”

 

> _ Wow, I can’t remember the last time you said you had fun and actually meant it. _ The man wrote, half joking, have truly amazed. It had barely been more than 24 hours and these kids were already making his brother happier than he’d been in a long time.
> 
>  

The man trapped in the Journal  _ craved _ that kind of connection.

 

> _ I want to meet them myself.  _ He wrote, hoping his words conveyed the right combination of firmness and gentleness. The Beast looked hesitant.  _ Please, they’re my family too! You can’t keep them from me! _

 

The monster looked stricken. “I-I didn’t mean to seem like I was hoggin’ them to myself. I was just worried about you is all.”

>  
> 
> _ I know, but I think we established last night that you sometimes worry too much. _

 

The Beast mulled it over before speaking again. “Alright, on one condition. You gotta help me think of something special I can do for the two of them.”


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Family bonding and story telling.

The next day the kids managed to eat breakfast without it turning into a full-on war. Mostly because the Beast had not joined them in the dining room.

 

“I wonder what he’s up to…” Dipper muttered suspiciously as he munched down his bacon and eggs.

 

“Easy there, captain paranoid.” Mabel said. “What makes you think he’s up to something? Maybe he just slept in!”

 

“I saw him whispering with Soos last night!” The boy revealed. “And when I asked Soos about it afterward, he said he wasn’t allowed to tell me!”

 

Mabel hummed thoughtfully. “That’s kinda weird, I guess. But maybe it’s personal stuff?”

 

“Maybe…” Dipper replied. After the Beast had saved their lives, the boy was more willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. But that didn’t mean the Beast wasn’t awfully suspicious from time to time. Dipper wondered what the mysterious monster was hiding, and how he and his sister fit into it.

 

The young twins finished eating and got ready for another day of cleaning up the castle. Wendy found them drying dishes in the kitchen. “Hey guys, the boss has been looking for you.”

 

The kids exchanged a surprised glance and followed the axe out the door to the main hall, where the Beast was waiting for them. He looked extremely nervous and twitchy, and held a long strip of cloth in each paw.

 

“Uh, I got something I wanna show you two.” The Beast grumbled. “But ya gotta wear blindfolds, it’s a surprise!”

 

Dipper took his blindfold with apprehension. “Blindfolds never lead to anything good.” He muttered.

 

“C’mon Dipper!” Mabel encouraged him, already tying her blindfold on. “Where’s your sense of adventure?”

 

He sighed and tied the cloth around his eyes, then immediately reached out and grabbed his sister’s hand tightly. He felt the Beast place a huge paw on his back and lead him forward. They took many twists and turns, until Dipper was sure the monster was trying to get them lost, before stopping.

 

“Can we take them off now?” Mabel asked excitedly.

 

“Ha-hold your horses!” The Beast chuckled. “Give me a minute to get everything set up.”

 

They heard a large set of doors open, the rattling swoosh of blinds opening, and, so quiet Dipper almost missed it, a whisper of “They’re here.”

 

“Ok, open ‘em up!” The Beast ordered. The young twins pulled down their blindfolds and squinted into the bright room. After their eyes adjusted to the light, they gasped. It was a library! The biggest library either of them had ever even dreamed of. The room itself was larger than the building that housed the library back home, and was nothing but floor-to-ceiling bookshelves and great spacious windows that kept the room well-lit. In the center were a couple of comfy-looking couches and a low table, where the Beast stood, holding something behind his back. This entirely escaped the kids’ notice as they took in their surroundings.

 

“Omigosh.” Mabel whispered in hushed awe.

 

“...I--words… not working--from mouth!” Dipper stuttered.

 

The two of them ran into the room, looking for books that would interest them.

 

“Oh wow! The  _ first _ Sibling Brothers! They only printed a hundred of these!” Dipper gasped.

 

“Oooh! A whole series of books about beautiful, dangerous, misunderstood, hot, magical guys!” Mabel cooed.

 

They both turned back to thank the Beast, and saw him carefully holding a tattered, red book.

 

“Is that… that’s the book from your room!” Dipper exclaimed.

 

“Yeah. I figured I owe you two an explanation.” The Beast said slowly, handing it to them cautiously. “Go ahead and say hello.”

 

“Uh… hello?” The boy said awkwardly as he flipped the book open.

 

> _ Greetings!  _ Appeared at the top of the page.

 

Mabel gasped. “So I  _ didn’t _ imagine that the other day!”

 

> _ Do kids say ‘greetings’? _ The writing continued.  _ I haven’t talked to anyone else in a really long time… _
> 
>  

“It’s a book that writes back to you!!” The girl squealed in excitement. “That is so _ cool _ !”

 

“Whoa… are you one of the people that got cursed?” Dipper asked.

 

> _ Very astute! Smart and weird. I like these kids! _

 

The Beast felt a happy warmth spread through him as he watched the kids laugh and talk as they read the book. “Kids, I’d like to introduce you to my brother.”

 

The kids looked between the Beast and the book they held between them. “Your  _ brother _ !?” Mabel asked incredulously.

 

“Haha, what, you can’t see the family resemblance?” The Beast joked.

 

“Wait, but that means… _ you two _ are the brothers from the story Wendy told us!” Dipper connected the dots.

 

“Oh, she uh… she told you that?” The Beast asked awkwardly. He glanced to the doorway where the axe in question was watching, along with Soos and Robbie.

 

“Uh, well, they asked. What was I supposed to say?” She said sheepishly.

 

The Beast rolled his eyes and plopped down on one of the couches. The kids snuggled in on either side of him. Dipper held the Journal so everyone could read its pages.

 

“Sooooo I guess that makes you two our great-uncles.” The boy guessed.

 

“Uh, what? Haha, who said anything about that?” The Beast tried to deny, but it clearly wasn’t working. He shot a glare at Wendy and the others. “Thanks a lot!”

 

“I figured it out myself.” Dipper assured him. “It was pretty obvious. I mean, as soon as I told them about the letter to our grandpa, Wendy suddenly had to go, and then after that you started acting nicer to us.”

 

“Whoa!” Mabel hugged the Beast’s arm tightly. “I can’t believe it! We finally found our missing family and they’re totally awesome! So which one of you is Stanford?”

 

> _ I’m afraid we don’t know ourselves.  _ The man trapped in the book replied.  _ The curse has erased most of who we were before, including our names. Honestly, we’re lucky to even remember we had a third brother. _

 

“Wow. That’s terrible!” Dipper said sadly. “How did this curse even start though? Wendy kinda explained it to us, but I’d like to know the full story.

 

“Uh…” The Beast hummed apprehensively.

 

> _ They have a right to know.  _ The man in the Journal wrote.  _ I’m not proud of my part in it either. _

 

“Ok, ok.” The silvery monster relented. “Like he said, we don’t remember a whole lot from before, but how the curse happened is probably the clearest memory we’ve still got. Before that it gets progressively more and more fuzzy. Uh, no pun intended.” He said as Mabel giggled and ruffled the fur on his arm. “We grew up together, but at some point we went our separate ways.”

 

> _ I remember that part.  _ More writing appeared in the book.  _ I wanted to go into academia, but he wanted to go into business. If you could call it that. _

 

“Oh, yeah, sure, bring that up!” The Beast huffed.

 

“What, what’s he mean?” Dipper asked.

 

> _ Well, being a liar and a cheat are hardly good business practices. _

 

“Hah! All the suckers in the world make it too easy!” The monster growled with a mix of pride and defensiveness.

 

“Um, could you maybe not fight and get back to the story?” Mabel asked.

 

> _ Right, sorry.  _ The man in the Journal apologized.  _ It was the first time we’d really been apart, so we had a bit of a fight. It had always been expected that we’d work together as we grew up. _

 

_ “A bit of a fight _ , he calls it.” The Beast growled.

 

> _ Anyway, I went to study for a few years until I decided to travel a bit for research. I wanted to learn more about magic, but most of my colleagues thought I was crazy. One day I came upon an old map with mysterious writing around the edges and a castle marked in a yellow triangle. I read the incantation and summoned a strange being who called himself Bill Cipher. He promised me I would find the knowledge I was looking for at Gravity Falls Castle. I found the castle here in the woods, and hired some people from the nearby town to help me re-build it. I called my best friend from university to help me, the only other one who had believed in magic, and we began to learn spells that Bill showed me in my dreams.  _
> 
>  
> 
> _ But the workers and my friend began to grow suspicious. There were plenty of old legends and superstitions about the old castle, and everyone wondered where I was learning all this information about magic. At the time it seemed to me like they were all about to turn against me. In hindsight it’s clear they were only worried about me, but Bill was poisoning my mind. He told me I couldn’t trust any of them. So I asked the last people I could trust for help. My family. _
> 
>  
> 
> _ Your grandfather had just gotten engaged, so I didn’t feel right involving him. I just asked him to help me find my other brother, who had all but disappeared when he left home after our fight. _

 

“Tch, only to you!” The Beast snarled. “You were so caught up in your stupid research you didn’t know where  _ any _ of your family was! You never would’ve known he was getting married if he hadn’t sent you a letter!”

 

“So, uh, what were you up to when you got the letter?” Mabel asked, once again trying her best to break up the brothers’ argument.

 

“At your grandpa’s wedding, of course!” The Beast grinned. “Uh, before that I was trying to sell off some random scraps of fabric I’d salvaged as the latest textiles from the Americas. One of my better business ventures. Anyway, I got the letter from my brother, asking me to be the new overseer for his workers, since they didn’t trust him anymore or something like that. I hadn’t seen him in years, so I packed up right after the wedding. I get there and find my brother, but he’s acting weird.”

 

> _ It was Bill’s influence.  _ The man in the book insists.  _ He had talked me into allowing him to control my body. _

 

The kids cringed.

 

“Yeah, well, it was scary to watch is what is was.” The Beast grumbled. “Anyway,after about a week I make friends with the workers and they tell me about how thing’s’ve been getting worse and worse the more my brother experimented with magic, so they’re planning an intervention. I tell ‘em to let me talk to him first. But when I make my way up to where he and his friend are working, the other guy just runs outta there screaming nonsense.”

 

> _ It was my fault…  _ the man trapped in the Journal wrote shakily.  _ Bill gave me a new spell to test, he’d said it would take care of my trust problem. Instead it addled my friend’s mind! He didn’t even recognize me; he thought I’d attacked him! I never even got the chance to explain to him what had happened, much less apologize… I don’t even remember his name now… _

 

“Oh man…” Dipper said gravely. 

 

“You don’t know the half of it.” The Beast picked up the tale. “It completely drove my brother off the deep end.”

 

> _ Hey! _

 

“Don’t try to deny it! You wouldn’t sleep, you wouldn’t let anyone come near you without checking their eyes! Everyone agreed it was time for the intervention, but when I tried to talk to him about leaving all this magic junk behind, he shoves his research journals into my arms and tells me to take all the workers and go.”

 

> _ I was trying to protect you! _

 

“Obviously I wasn’t gonna leave him alone like that.” The monster rumbled insistently. “So I picked up a candle and told him I’d burn one of his dumb books if he didn’t leave with us.”

 

> _ Which was a stupid and rash thing to do. Making threats did not help your case. _
> 
>  

“I was sick of all this crap!” The Beast roared. The kids held their hands over their ears and flinched, but the monster continued to rage anyway. “If you’d just come with me none of this would’ve happened!”

 

> _ Coming with you wouldn’t have solved anything! I was still vulnerable to Bill! None of this would have happened if you’d done what I said and left me to deal with Bill myself! _

 

“Oh yeah! And how were you gonna do that!?” The Beast asked sarcastically. “Just stay awake for the rest of your life?”

 

“Stop it!” Mabel cried.

 

The Beast froze and the anger and rage slowly drained from him. No more writing appeared in the book.

 

“Please stop yelling and fighting.” Mabel begged, her hands still clamped over her ears.

 

The silvery monster got up from the couch and stalked out the door. “Sorry you kids had to see that.” He grumbled as he left.

 

> _ I’m sorry… _ The man trapped in the Journal wrote, though only the kids could see it. 

 

“So… what happened next?” Dipper asked.

 

“Dipper!” Mabel scholded.

 

“I know, I know, there are some really serious family issues going on right now, but I really wanna know what happened!”

 

> _ That’s alright. _ The man in the book wrote.  _ I can finish telling the story while my brother cools off. We fought over the book, rather violently, I’m afraid. I’d gone without sleep for the past three days and my brother had always been the more physical one, so he overpowered me rather quickly. But he underestimated just how weakened I’d become. When he wrestled me to the ground I hit my head. Under normal circumstances I probably just would have blacked out for a couple of seconds, but it was Bill’s opportunity to take control of me. _

 

The kids gasped. 

 

> _ That had been Bill’s plan all along, to teach me spells and acclimate my body to larger and larger amounts of magic, so he could use me as a conduit for his chaos magic. All I could do was watch in horror as that evil triangle used my body to turn my friends into inanimate objects. My brother knew Bill’s type though, unable to resist a wager. So they made a bet. Bill bet my brother couldn’t love or be loved by anyone because of his self-loathing and beastly temper. If he won, Bill’s curse would be broken and the triangle would never be able to take control of me again. If he lost, I’d be Bill’s forever, and his chaos would fill the world. There weren’t any other options, so my brother took the bet. He saved my life. _
> 
>  
> 
> _ But Bill had the last laugh again. He transformed my brother into the Beast you know now, saying it matched his temper, and turned me into this Journal, supposedly since I cared more about my old journals than my brother. It wasn’t like that! But Bill has a cruel sense of humor. It’s made breaking the curse nearly impossible. _
> 
>  

“So… only true love can break the spell?” Dipper clarified.

 

“...Let’s hook him up with one of the lady wolves that lives in the forest!” Mabel suggested.

* * *

  
  


A few hours later, the Beast sat in his favorite chair sulking. He’d lost his temper in front of the kids  _ again _ ! They were already scared of him enough as it was, and now that they knew how his fight with his brother had caused the curse, they surely wouldn’t want anything to do with him, long-lost relative or not.

 

“Don’t take it so hard, dude!” Soos encouraged him. “They really liked seeing that library, and they know you care about them. I’m sure they still care about you.”

 

“Yeah, well, they shouldn’t…”

 

“Don’t be so hard on yourself man.” Wendy scolded him. “This is  _ nothing _ compared to your last outburst. You’re actually getting better at controlling your temper!”

 

Their conversation came to an end when Mabel entered. She walked right up to the Beast and sat down on his lap like it was no big deal.

 

“Uh…” The silvery monster stammered.

 

“Hey, are you feeling better?” She asked sweetly.

 

“Yeah, er, sorry for makin’ a scene earlier.” 

 

“It’s ok. You’ve been through some really intense junk! That’d make anyone grumpy!”

 

The Beast chuckled. “I’ve been grumpy all my life, kiddo. So, uh, where’s your brother at?”

 

Mabel blew a raspberry. “Still in the library. He and  _ your _ brother have been talking about nerd stuff for the past hour! I got bored and read my own book for a bit, but then I got bored with that too, so I came to check on you.”

 

“Oh.” The Beast said in surprise. He wasn’t used to other people checking on him. He wasn’t even aware he needed checking up on. “Y’know, if you’re bored, there’s one more thing I wanted to show you kids.”

 

“Ooooh!” The girl cooed. “Should I go get Dipper?”

 

“Nah, I don’t think he’ll be as into it as you.” He paused to think. “But what do I know? Your brother like dancing?”

 

“More than he’d ever admit to.” Mabel replied.

 

“Right. Well, let’s go grab the two of ‘em then.”

  
  


The Beast entered the library and found the boy and his brother deep in conversation.

 

“...just a window? That’s all!?” The boy asked in surprise. He read on a bit before replying. “Well I kinda understand where he’s coming from, I mean, if it were Mabel and me, I’d want to protect her too, but still!”

 

The silvery monster was curious about his brother’s side of the conversation, so he snuck up behind the kid to read over his shoulder. He found the last few lines his brother had written.

 

> _ It’s a rare occasion if he even picks me up. Most days he’ll just come in and talk at me at the end of the day. Any other time all I have is that room with the one window. _
> 
>  
> 
> _ He’s afraid I’ll get hurt. We can both feel even the tiniest scratch, so he’s become over-protective. It’s driving me insane! I miss talking to people, I miss seeing things! _
> 
>  
> 
> _ Thank you for understanding.  _ The man trapped in the book was now writing. _ I never would have been able to talk to him about this. I know it’s horrible to say my own brother is being suffocating when he’s just trying to help, but… I just don’t want to be alone anymore. I’m so glad I’ve had the chance to meet you and your sister, it really has helped. _

 

“I’m glad I got to meet you too.” Dipper said with a bittersweet smile. “I’ll do what I can to make sure you don’t have to be alone anymore.”

 

The Beast drew back, trying not to breath. He’d never known his brother felt that way! He suddenly felt very guilty, both for reading in on the conversation and keeping his brother so isolated. He cleared his throat to make his presence known.

 

“Waugh!” Dipper cried, nearly dropping the book in surprise.

 

“Careful!” The Beast reprimanded him.

 

“S-sorry! I--he’s ok!” The boy checked the Journal, “You’re ok, right? ...He’s ok! You just scared me is all.”

 

The silvery monster flashed a toothy grin. “What can I say, I’m a scary guy. I got another surprise for you and your sister, come on.”

* * *

  
  


The Beast opened up a door into a spacious room with a domed ceiling. It was even bigger than the library, and the entire floor was empty. Towering marble columns stood like trees along the walls. A huge balcony looked out over the grounds across from them.

 

“Oh. My.  _ Gosh! _ ” Mabel gasped. “Is this the ballroom!?”

 

“Yep.” The Beast said proudly. He was glad to see how much she liked this surprise.

 

“What would you even do with a ballroom this big?” Dipper wondered as he craned his head up to see the extravagantly painted dome.

 

“Uh duh! Throw a ball, of course!” Mabel exclaimed. “Eeeeek! We should throw a ball!”

 

“Whoah, hah, let’s not get ahead of ourselves…” The Beast laughed nervously.

 

“Oh, uh, I don’t really think…” Dipper stammered.

 

“Oh come on guys! What’s the point of having a ballroom if you  _ don’t _ throw a ball?” She asked.

 

> _ I think it’s a great idea!  _ The man trapped in the Journal wrote.

 

“You’re just sayin’ that cuz you won’t have to dance.” The Beast grumbled.

 

“Wait!” Robbie suddenly appeared in the doorway. “Did someone say ball? Are we throwing a ball!?”

 

“Yeah we are!” Mabel proclaimed.

 

“Augh, don’t tie your strings up, we’re _ thinkin’ _ about it.” The Beast insisted.

 

“I’m not hearing a no~” Mabel said in a sing-song voice.

 

“Yes! Finally!” Robbie cheered. “I’ll get a chance to play some of the songs I’ve been working on! Listen to this:  _ Darkneeeeeees! Lame Parents! Continued darkness, more darkness-- _ ”

 

“Whoa, ok, thanks!” Mabel cut him off. “I’m sure that’s a really great song, but I was thinking of something a little more upbeat.”

 

“Oh.” Robbie said dejectedly. “Well, what exactly were you thinking of?”

 

“Hmm, well, I know Dipper likes dances by a certain girly Icelandic composer…” Mabel grinned.

 

“Mabel!” Her brother muttered through clenched teeth.

 

Soos and Wendy soon joined Robbie at the door. “Dudes! Are we throwing a ball!?” The hammer asked excitedly.

 

“ _ Maybe _ .” The Beast grumbled.

 

“Permission to be the DJ, boss?”

 

“What the heck’s a deejay?”

 

“I wanna make some song suggestions!” Wendy added.

 

“I’ll be taking suggestions!” Mabel assured her. “This ball is gonna take some planning, but luckily for you guys, I’m a _ master _ party planner.”

* * *

  
  


It had been a long day of party planning, and another blizzard was starting up. The strange little family sat curled up in front of the fire, Dipper reading aloud the story that the man in the Journal was writing.

 

“So Aladin tried to clean off the lamp so he could read it, but as soon as he rubbed it, it began to shake and smoke poured out of the spout.” Dipper paused and laughed.

 

“What, what’s so funny?” Mabel asked.

 

“I’m sorry, he writes faster than I can read aloud!” The boy explained. “The smoke swirled around and took the form of a man, who let out an unearthly moan as he grew larger and larger, towering over Aladin. ‘Auh! Ten thousand years can give you such a crick in the neck!’ It groaned.”

 

They all laughed at the joke, and the writing paused for Dipper to catch up. They continued to read until the fire had nearly burned out and Mabel and the Beast were fast asleep. Dipper was getting pretty drowsy himself, but he had found a way to hold a silent conversation with the man in the Journal by writing with his own pen.

 

**So Gremloblins and Haunted Doors and all that other stuff written in here, you’ve actually seen all those?** The boy wrote.

 

> _ Those and more. Whatever was on the pages I’ve lost, I’ve forgotten. But I spent years studying the magical creatures in the woods around here. I know I must have written about each one I found. _

 

**That’s so awesome! I wish I could see stuff like that! I’ve always known there was something weird about these woods, but no one ever believed me!**

 

> _ I know the feeling. When I left university to try and study magic from a scientific standpoint, most everyone thought I was throwing away my talent. But I’d always believed in magic. I always thought there had to be more to the oddities of the world. _

 

**What made you believe in magic, even after you grew up?**

 

> _ I don’t remember. I wish I did, I know it was important to me. There are so many things I’ve lost that were important to me. _

 

Dipper shuddered at the thought of losing memories that were important to him.  **That sounds horrible! What’s it like?**

>  
> 
> _ It’s not painful, but I wouldn’t wish it on anyone. You just wake up one morning and try to think of something, only to find it’s not there anymore. Sometimes it’s little things that you don’t miss at first, but they add up. Forgetting something you know was important is the worst though. It’s almost like a craving. You know, when you feel like you want to eat something, but you don’t know what, so you stand in the kitchen looking at all your ingredients, trying to think of what to cook, but you can’t.  _
> 
>  

The man trapped in the book waited for his nephew to reply, but none came. Instead he heard the soft breathing of a sleeping child. If he could sigh with contentment, he would have. He had a family again, and they were all together and safe. Things weren’t ideal, no, but they could make it work. They could be happy like this.

 

That old paranoid part of him had to wonder how long it would last.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Snowball fights, ballroom dancing, and tears.

Last night’s blizzard had let up and the morning sun sparkled invitingly off the freshly fallen snow, beckoning the children to come out and play in it. Who were they to ignore the call? Dressed in thick cloaks, boots, gloves, and scarves, the young twins enjoyed making snow angels and leaving fresh tracks while the Beast and his brother watched from one of the castle’s doorways.

 

Mabel paused in her play as she spotted a small flock of birds trying to dig under the snow for worms. She pulled some crumbs out from the pocket of her apron and sat still for a moment. They flitted over to her and began picking at the crumbs. The Beast chuckled fondly as he watched.

 

“You wanna try?” She called to him.

 

“Oh, uh, I don’t think any birds are gonna come near me.” The Beast reasoned.

 

“Come on, it’s easy!” She encouraged him. He shook his head. “At least come out and play with us!”

 

“Yeah!” Dipper agreed. “The snow’s great!”

 

“Well…” The silvery monster looked down at the book in his hands. The reflection of his brother waved him off, letting him know it was ok. The Beast smiled gratefully, and put the book down gently, carefully propping it up so his brother could continue to watch.

 

The Beast lumbered out into the snow and crouched down beside Mabel. She grabbed his paw and dropped some more crumbs into his palm. “Keep really really still” She instructed, slowly backing away. He held his breath and tried not to move. The birds eyed him cautiously, but after a few seconds, started hopping towards him. As they inched closer, the Beast’s lungs began to feel the need for oxygen, and he had to take a gasping breath, scaring the birds away again.

 

Mabel giggled. “You’re not supposed to hold your breath, silly! You just gotta breath really quietly. How about you try again?”

 

“Alright, alright.” The Beast rolled his eyes, but he just couldn’t say no to her. He held the paw-full of crumbs out again and held very still, this time breathing slowly and quietly. This time Mabel left some more crumbs in a trail leading straight to his paw. The birds picked at the trail of food, following it straight up to the silvery monster.

 

“It’s working.” He breathed. “Mabel, it’s working!”

 

“See, I told you it was easy!” She whispered back, sneaking away so as not to scare the birds.

 

The Beast sat like that for a minute or so, just appreciating how beautiful the tiny birds were up close, until he noticed the kids were being suspiciously quiet. “Hey, what’re you two d--”

 

_ Paff!  _ He received a face-full of snowballs the second he turned around to look for them. The young twins burst out laughing.

 

“Sorry, couldn’t resist!” Dipper apologized insincerely.

 

The Beast stood up to his full height and grinned dangerously down at them. “Oh-ho, you two are gonna get it now!” He gathered a great arm-full of snow and flung it after the fleeing children. They all began laughing as they engaged in a free-for-all of a snowball fight. With all the snow flying around it was almost as if the blizzard had started again. Eventually the melting snow started to soak through their clothes, and everyone agreed it was time to go back inside and warm up. They found mugs of hot cocoa waiting for them in the kitchen.

 

“You guys have fun out there?” Wendy asked.

 

“Y-y-yeah!” Dipper replied, his teeth chattering from the cold. Mabel was also shivering, and the Beast looked like a giant soaked dog.

 

“Well, I got a fire going in the big fireplace if you wanna warm up.” The axe informed them.

 

“Th-th-thanks Wendy, y-you’re the b-b-best.” The boy thanked her.

 

“I know dude.” She replied smugly.

* * *

 

As they all warmed up in front of the fire, the kids began to play games with the man trapped in the Journal. Mabel began with Tic-Tac-Toe, or at least her own muddled version of the game, where she changed which symbol she was using almost every turn, and then Dipper took a turn playing a strategy game where you tried to make the most boxes by connecting dots. After winning a few rounds of that, the man in the book suggested a game of pictionary, so that all of them could play at once. 

 

“Yeah!” Mabel agreed immediately. She turned to the Beast. “Hey, you wanna play pictionary with us?”

 

The silvery monster scoffed. “I wasn’t much of an artist before, and these babies” He bared his claws, “don’t make it any easier. I’m happy just watchin’.”

 

“Well, you can still play!” Dipper corrected him. “We’ll just skip you when it’s your turn to draw. Actually, it kinda gives you an advantage since you get one more turn to earn points”

 

“Alright, you talked me into it kid. But you might not wanna play with him.” The Beast pointed to the open book. “He’s a crazy-good artist.”

 

> _ I don’t get any points for artistic ability, just how fast I can guess what the others are drawing! _ His brother defended.  _ If anything you should be glad I’m playing, my turn will be easy points. _

 

“I wanna go first!” Mabel declared. She took her pen and drew a circle with two parallel lines inside.

 

“Smiley face!” Dipper guessed right away.

 

“Nope!” Mabel said. She drew a bigger circle around it, with a little smile below the first circle, and two little dots above it for eyes. Next she added two triangles on top of the bigger circle.

 

“It’s a pig!” The Beast declared.

 

“Aw, I didn’t even get to make his fat little body and curly tail!” She whined playfully.

 

It was Dipper’s turn next. He twirled his pen around a bit before finally deciding on what to draw. He started with a skinny triangle, then a wavy squigly curve connecting the two bottom corners.

 

“Ooh! An upside-down ice cream cone!” Mabel guessed.

 

“What? No!” Dipper exclaimed. “How does that look like icecream to you?”

 

The boy continued to draw a long U shape, with two dots on either side. Everyone was still confused as to what it might be.

 

“Some sorta, I dunno, bouquet of flowers or somethin’?” The Beast speculated.

 

The boy sighed and drew a little smile under the U to make a face, and little arms sticking out from the squigly loop.

 

> _ It’s a gnome. _ The man in the Journal finally got it.

 

“There we go!” Dipper nodded. “Sorry, I guess I wasn’t very good at drawing it.”

 

> _ You did fine.  _ The man assured him.  _ I suppose it’s my turn now? Give me a few seconds to think. _

 

The three of them waited a few seconds, and fluid lines began to appear on the page. A rough sketch that was clearly a person began to take place.

 

“It’s a human!” The Beast surmised.

 

> _ Well, you’re not wrong. I’m looking for a more specific answer. _

 

The sketch continued and darker, thicker lines added long, curly hair held back by a bandana, and a cute dress and apron.

 

“Wow, you weren’t kidding about him being a crazy-good artist!” Dipper commented to the Beast.

 

“It’s me!” Mabel gasped in delight as the man trapped in the book began to add a face to his drawing.

 

> _ I’m surprised none of you got it sooner! _

 

“We were too busy watching you work to say anything.” Dipper laughed.

* * *

  
  


Mabel finally decided they were ready for the ball. The ballroom was beautifully decorated with anything and everything colorful she could find, which admittedly wasn’t a lot. The old castle seemed to favor dull, worn-out greys and browns. The most common colors she could find were burgandy red, and golden yellow. Eventually she settled for going to Grenda and just hanging up her many colorful outfits around the edges of the room. Then, since the living dresser had helped so much, Mabel insisted that Grenda be brought to the ballroom so she could participate. The Beast, being the only one capable of lifting the huge dresser, was not particularly happy about this. Dipper tried his best to help, but the young boy had very little upper-body strength and ended up getting in the way more than helping.

 

On the music front, Robbie had collected every bit of sheet music he could find in the castle, rounded up every living object that could play an instrument or _ was _ an instrument, and taught them the songs he had memorized or made up himself. When that didn’t work, he got Tambry to write more sheet music for him. Everyone performed much better with all the notes in front of them.

 

This just left the participants to get themselves fancied up for the party. Unfortunately this meant Dipper had to take a bath.

 

“Uhg, do I really have to do this?” He complained as a sentient bucket dumped water over him.

 

“You were kinda startin’ to smell, dawg.” Soos assured him.

 

The boy groaned as a couple of combs began to fuss with his hair. “You’re lucky you’re a hammer and you don’t have to be forced into some ridiculous get-up.”

 

“Are you kidding dude? I’d love to try on some fancy duds!” The hammer proclaimed. “I even put on a bowtie somehow!”

 

Dipper scrutinized his friend to find he did indeed have a tiny bowtie tied to his handle. “How’d you do that?”

 

“It’s best you don’t ask.” Soos brushed his question away and helped the boy out of the tub and directly into a towel. The combs came back with a vengeance, along with a hat-rack who tried to force him into that purple suit coat Grenda had showed to him his first day at the castle.

 

“Uhg, all this dress-up stuff just isn’t my thing!” Dipper complained, vainly trying to fight the living objects off.

 

“Well forget the dress-up stuff then!” Soos advised. “Think about all the fun you’re gonna have with the music and dancing instead.” He paused as the combs finished their work. “You look totally--”

 

“Stupid.” Dipper finished. The combs had somehow tamed his bushy brown hair into great big girly curls, and a bow in the back tried to pull his excess hair into a tiny ponytail. 

 

“I was gonna say ‘dapper’ cuz it sounds like your name!” The hammer corrected. “Nice birthmark, dude.”

 

The boy groaned and tried to brush his bangs back down over his forehead.

* * *

  
  


The Beast shuffled his feet nervously as he waited for the kids. He’d gotten more used to walking on his hind legs again lately, but he wasn’t sure if he was up to dancing. His brother assured him that it would be fine. Only the kids and the workers would see him, and none of them would care how well he danced. Still, he couldn’t help but be nervous. He cared about these kids more than anything he’d cared about in a long, long time. He wanted this to go well for them.

 

Dipper came down the stairs first, looking rather uncomfortable in a purple suit that was uncharacteristically flashy for him. He seemed to lighten up a bit when Wendy complimented him though. Next came Mabel, who had put on the poofiest dress she could find. It was pink and covered with fabric flowers. Matching pink flowers decorated her hair, and a pair of long, pink gloves managed to make the ensemble look kind of elegant. She flounced down the stairs, taking joy in the way her dress flowed with each step. 

 

“Ahem!” She cleared her throat as she reached the bottom of the stairs. “Let’s get this party started!”

 

With that Robbie and the band started playing some classical dance music. Mabel grabbed Dipper by the arm and dragged him onto the dance floor. She swung him around and around until he got dizzy and started laughing. Once she was sure he was enjoying himself, she left him with Grenda and waltzed herself over to the Beast.

 

“May I have this dance?” She asked, holding an arm out to him in invitation. He raised an eyebrow in surprise, then grinned.

 

“My pleasure!” He replied warmly. That dancing wasn’t so bad, actually. It was pretty easy when he let Mabel lead. He just sort of lifted each foot in time with the music and made sure not to step down on her feet. He knew he wouldn’t be winning any dance competitions soon, but as long as Mabel was enjoying herself, he didn’t care.

 

Meanwhile, Dipper was trying to dance with Grenda. She could shimmy and hop a few inches, and sway with the beat, but he wasn’t sure how they were going to turn that into a partnered dance. Plus, he was worried about the drawer landing on his foot.

 

“I’m not sure how this is gonna work.” He told her.

 

“Don’t question it!” Grenda insisted. “Just do it! Feel the music and move! Let go of your fears!”

 

On the other side of the dance floor, Soos was perfectly happy just dancing with himself.

 

“Hey Wendy, don’t you wanna dance?” He asked his friend.

 

“Nah, I don’t think I can handle the whole dancing without legs or arms thing.” She declined. “You make it work though!

 

After another song, Mabel finished dancing with the Beast. Next she sashayed up to the table that held the Journal. 

 

“Hey, you having fun?” She asked. The reflection of her uncle gave a crooked smile and nodded. Mabel noticed a sad, longing glint in his eyes though. She looked at him thoughtfully, wondering how she could cheer him up. “You wanna dance?” The girl finally asked.

 

She saw the man’s reflection laugh and give her a sad smile. He didn’t think he could, but Mabel wasn’t about to let that stop her. She grabbed the book and began dancing across the floor with it, spinning and leaping gracefully until the song ended.

 

“Haha, looks like you had to dance after all!” The Beast laughed at his brother. “Mind if I cut in?” He took the book carefully and handed it to Dipper before dancing off with Mabel again.

 

“I hope you don’t mind her making you dance like that.” The boy said, cracking the book open to a blank page.

 

> _ Not at all.  _ The man trapped in the Journal wrote.  _ I’d been wishing I could join in. It’s not the same, but I’m grateful to your sister all the same for trying. _

 

Dipper chuckled awkwardly. “Eheh, I guess I’m the only one who doesn’t really like the ballroom scene.” He sighed, but his ears perked up when he recognized the next song the band was playing. “Wait, is this… Ballroom Queen? I love this song!” He looked down at the book apologetically, “Uh, do you mind if I…”

 

> _ Go right ahead!  _ The man in the book encouraged him. 

 

He put the book down gently and ran onto the dance floor.

 

* * *

 

The dance lasted late into the night, until eventually the band ran out of music. Dipper and the Beast were both falling asleep on their feet and all the people-turned-objects had gone to bed. Mabel was the only one who seemed to still be energized. 

 

“I think we can call this ball a success!” She grinned.

 

The Beast yawned, showing off his monstrous teeth. “Great. Glad to see you kids are happy.”

 

Dipper fidgeted at this. The Beast frowned, his old insecurities flaring up immediately. “Y-you kids are happy here, right?”

 

“Yeah, I am, it’s just… I was thinking of Old Man McGucket.” Dipper explained. “He would have loved this.”

 

“Oh yeah,” Mabel agreed. “Remember that one time he jigged for seven days straight?” The young twins laughed, but their laughter soon died into a sad sigh. “I hope he’s ok…”

 

The Beast glanced down at the polished golden handprint inlaid into the book he held, exchanging a significant look with his brother.

 

"Y'know, if you're worried about the guy, there's a way to check up on him right here." He handed the journal over to Dipper.

 

"W-what do you mean?" The boy asked, confused.

 

"One of the few perks of the curse." The Beast explained. "We've got a little window to look in on anyone or anything. Just say 'Show me whatever-his-name-is' and you'll see him here."

 

Dipper nodded and looked into the golden handprint, locking eyes with his other uncle. "Show me Fiddleford McGucktet." He said clearly.

 

The man's reflection faded away and was replaced with an old man with a straggly beard lying in a bed. A hospital bed.

 

"Oh no, he's still sick!?" Mabel gasped.

 

"It's been almost a week, and he obviously made it to the hospital." Her brother observed. "How come he's not getting better, is his illness worse than we thought?"

 

The Beast gulped and shifted his gaze guiltily. "His cough did seem to be making' its way into his lungs while he was here. Might've developed into pneumonia, that'd take a while to kick, 'especially somebody his age."

 

"Pneumonia!?" Dipper exclaimed anxiously.

 

Mabel shushed him. "Look!"

 

The image in the book's cover now showed McGucket attempting to leave his room in the hospital, while one of the nurses tried to wrestle him back into the bed.

 

"Lemme go!" The old man protested. "Those kids're in danger! I gotta save them!"

 

"McGucket  _ please _ stay in your bed! You'll be no good to those children if you don't rest and recover!" The nurse pleaded. "Lil' Gideon Gleeful is putting together a search party, leave it to him, he'll find them."

 

"I already  _ told ya _ where they are!" McGucket insisted. "They's at Gravity Falls Castle! The Beast has 'em!"

 

The nurse rolled her eyes. “Looks like you need another dose of medicine.”

 

The image faded. Mabel clasped her hands worriedly. "Oh, this is terrible! He's literally worrying himself  _ sicker _ ! Dipper, what do we do?"

 

Her brother made no reply. He was too concerned with the reflection of his uncle, who had returned looking stricken and shocked to his core.

 

"What is it, what's wrong?" They boy asked, flipping the book open.

 

The writing came slowly, as though the man trapped in the Journal wasn't sure what to say. 

 

> _ I _ _ know him. He was my friend. I never thought I'd see him again, but... How did this happen to him? _

 

"He got sick when he was in the dungeon here." Dipper explained.

 

> _ Why on earth would he have been in the dungeon!? _

 

The Beast kept his eyes trained on the ground, guilt and self-loathing eating away at him. "I didn't recognize him! I didn't mean any harm, I just... I was angry at the time, I just wanted to scare him a bit. If I'd known he was your friend I'd never have left him down there!"

 

> _ Oh, and if he wasn't my friend you'd have just left an innocent old man in the dungeon to cough a lung out!? _

 

"Hey, he's the one who wouldn't pay me for room an' board! Not exactly what I'd call innocent!" The silvery monster growled defensively.

 

> _ I can't believe you! _

 

"Enough!" Mabel cried. "All this fighting isn't going to help McGucket! We have to do something!"

 

“I don’t think there’s anything we  _ can _ do from here.” Dipper said sadly.

 

The Beast looked at the two children. He hated to see them so sad, so worried. At that moment, he made a difficult decision.

 

“Go.” He grumbled.

 

“What?” Dipper asked incredulously.

 

“Go check on your friend, let him know you’re ok. Help him get better.” 

 

“But-but what about the deal?” The boy didn’t quite believe what he was hearing, “We’ve still got like another week--”

 

“Forget about the stupid deal!” The Beast roared, before quieting down once again. “You don’t have to stay here. You don’t have to work off any debt. Just go.”

 

Mabel and Dipper shared a significant glance and nodded. The girl hugged the Beast tightly. 

 

“Thank you so much!” She mumbled into his fur.

 

“Thanks for everything.” The boy agreed, handing the journal back.

 

The Beast pushed his brother back to Dipper. “Take him with you.”

 

“Wait, what!?” The boy started. He  _ really _ couldn’t believe what he was hearing now.

 

> _ What on earth are you doing!?  _ The man in the Journal wrote frantically.  _ Just because I’m mad at you about what you did to my friend doesn’t mean you can send me away! _

 

“This isn’t about that!” The silvery monster insisted. “We gotta quit kiddin’ ourselves, the curse is never gonna be broken! It’s been thirty years, and I  _ still  _ haven’t got any prospects! You might as well live out the rest of your life with people who’ll actually talk to you without the risk of hurting you. Go make up with your old buddy. Go watch these kids grow up. You don’t have to be alone anymore.”

 

> _ I’m not going to leave  _ _ you _ _ here alone! _

 

“I’m not gonna argue with you about this!” The Beast slammed the book shut and thrust it back into the boy’s arms. “I trust you to take care of him more than I trust myself.”

 

“R-really?” Dipper asked, awed. No one had ever trusted him with something like this before.

 

The Beast nodded assuredly. “Now get goin’, you can use that old enchanted carriage, I don’t get any use out of it anymore except sendin’ people away.” He pushed them along to the castle’s main entrance.

 

As they exited, Mabel stopped and reached up for the Beast’s face, making him look her in the eye. “We’ll come back, I promise. We’ll even bring McGucket back with us if we have to!” With that she hopped into the red carriage, and then they were off. The Beast sighed forlornly as he watched them go.

 

“Don’t make promises you’re not gonna keep, kid.”


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Near-death experiences, broken curses, and happy endings!

What had started out as a normal hospital room had become almost a makeshift prison. The windows had been locked down, and there was a nurse or doctor guarding the door every minute of every day. Old Man McGucket was beginning to wonder if he’d have been better off in the  Beast’s dungeon. At least then he would have known what was happening with the kids. Now all he could do was sit in his bed and imagine poor Dipper and Mabel calling to him for help.

 

“McGucket!”

 

_ Now it’s almost like I c’n really hear ‘em!  _ The old man thought,  _ If the doctors find out about this, they’ll never let me go! _

 

“McGucket!” 

 

_ I wish they’d just lemme go and help those kids.  _ He continued to lament, _ I know I’m crazy, but I ain’t hurtin’ anyone none. _

 

Suddenly, the nurse guarding the door was bowled over as Mabel and Dipper charged into the room.

 

“McGucket!” They both cried. Mabel jumped up onto his bed and hugged him while Dipper held back a bit, looking down at a strange tattered book.

 

“Mabel! Dipper!” The old man exclaimed. “You’re really here! B-but how!? Didja finish that robut suit I was buildin’ and fight off the Beast?”

 

“What? No,” Dipper replied, “He let us go.”

 

McGucket’s brow furrowed in confusion. “That don’t make no sense…”

 

“It’s really not that big of a surprise.” Mabel insisted. “The Beast may put on a show of being some sort of ferocious monster, but he’s really just a big softie with a bit of a temper problem!”

 

“So you’re not in danger?” The old inventor asked, still concerned about the young twins.

 

“We’re fine! But what about you?” Dipper asked. “Why are you still in the hospital?”

 

The nurse the kids had knocked down had regained her senses and walked over to the three of them. “He was babbling on about some sort of Beast in Gravity Falls Castle. He seemed dead-set on running out into the woods to look for you kids despite the dangerous weather and his fragile health. We had to keep him from hurting himself!”

 

“Well, we’re here now, so obviously he’s not gonna run off looking for us.” Dipper said. “So you can let him go.”

 

“Of course, but first we need to tell Gideon!” The nurse insisted.

 

“What?” Mabel exclaimed, frowning in disgust. “What does Gideon have to do with anything?”

 

“He was organizing a search party to look for you kids!” The nurse explained as she got up to leave. “I’m going to go tell him he doesn’t have to bother. You can come along or stay here and help your friend pack, I suppose.” With that the nurse left, finally leaving the three of them alone. 

 

“Ah man, I thought she’d never leave.” Dipper muttered as he carefully set the strange book down on the inventor’s lap. “McGucket, we have something important to show you.”

 

McGucket looked at the book curiously. It was red and tattered, with a polished gold handprint set into the front cover. It showed the reflection of a man who looked simultaneously foreign and familiar, his eyes a deep earthy brown. His face was a mess of conflicting emotions.

 

“Wh-what is this?” The old man stammered in disbelief. “Is this a magic book or… did I know you once? Oh, this is crazy…”

 

“To answer both your questions: yes.” Dipper smiled reassuringly.

 

“It’s not crazy, McGucket, it’s magic!” Mabel explained. “Some wicked chaos magic messed with your head, and  _ that’s _ why you can’t remember stuff sometimes.”

 

“And that same magic ended up transforming everyone in Gravity Falls Castle!” Her brother continued. “Including our great uncles! One got turned into the Beast, and the other” he pointed to the book, “got turned into a Journal. But before that, he was your friend.”

 

Mabel opened the book up to a blank page. “Go ahead and say hello!”

 

“Hello?” McGucket said apprehensively, unsure if this would work. The word was barely half-way out of his mouth when frantically scribbled writing appeared on the page.

 

> _ I’m so sorry Fiddleford! I know you probably don’t even remember me by now, but maybe if I’d listened to you all those years ago none of us would be in this mess. _

 

McGucket wasn’t quite sure how just a couple of written sentences did it, but suddenly all the scattered, jumbled puzzle pieces of his mind began to come together. He connected the writing to a memory of a place, of Gravity Falls Castle, and that connected to why he was so scared of the castle and the surrounding woods. The memory of the place connected to the memory of a face, the face reflected in the cover of the book. The memory of the face connected to a name.

 

“S-stanford?” He said quietly.

 

> _ Is that my name? I’d forgotten.  _ Black splotches of in appeared on the page. 

 

“Omigosh, are you crying?” Mabel asked in concern, leaning over McGucket to get a better look at the book.

 

The old inventor tightened his grip on the book. “Now don’t you start cryin’ Ford, or you’ll get me cryin’!”

 

> _ So you do remember me? I’m sorry for coming back like this, I know you must hate me, but I had to take the opportunity to apologize to you. _

 

“Oh, don't be redonkulous, I don't hate you!” Fiddleford scolded him. “That was 30 years ago, you've made it plenty clear you're sorry, and it looks to me like you’ve learned your lesson and thensome!”

 

> _ You don't know the half of it!  _ The ink splotches on the page began to dry up.

 

Mabel hugged them all joyously. "This is great!! Now we can all go back to the castle together and be one big happy family!"

* * *

  
  


"An' then after I marry Mabel, we'll have six, no,  _ seven  _ beautiful boys! It'll be one big happy family!" Gideon was explaining his life plans to Ghost-Eyes as they recruited more people for the search party.

 

“What if she doesn’t want to have that many kids?” His lackey asked.

 

Gideon pashawed. “I’ll make her see things my way!”

 

The two of them made their way to the town square, where a small crowd of volunteers had gathered. Ghost-Eyes lifted the albino boy up on his shoulders so that he could better address them all.

 

“Thank you kindly.” Gideon complimented him. “Well, first thing’s first, thank y’all for comin’ along to help search for the dear lost Pines twins!” The people all nodded and murmured that they were always happy to help Lil’ Gideon. “Now, we have reason to believe they’ll be round ‘bout Gravity Falls Castle… and we have reason to believe that they’re bein’ held captive by the Beast of Gravity Falls!”

 

The people all gasped and their murmuring turned darker. “The Beast is just a myth!” Toby Determined cried.

 

“Or so we thought!” The albino boy corrected. “But I did some diggin’ in the older library books an’ found ancient writings about the ol’ castle. Long story short, there really is a Beast! And now, we gotta go kill him before he eats the Pines twins, and who knows, maybe even one of y’all!”

 

The easily persuaded crowd gasped and murmured some more and generally got very riled up. They were teetering towards mob status, but they weren’t quite there yet. The tension was broken a bit when a nurse from the hospital appeared, with the Pines and McGucket not terribly far behind. 

 

“Oh, good, you haven’t left yet!” Mabel breathed a sigh of relief. 

 

“M-mable! What’re you doin’ here!?” Gideon asked in confusion. This wasn’t supposed to happen! He was supposed to sweep in and save her! He was supposed to be the hero! How was he going to make Mabel love him now?

 

“We came to stop you!” She explained. “You all don’t have to run off into the dangerous woods in the snow, we’re fine!”

 

“But- but the Beast!”

 

Dipper rolled his eyes. “Oh, so guys will believe Gideon about the Beast, but not McGucket!?”

 

“Yep!” A voice called out from the crowd. 

 

“We gotta go kill it before it eats one of us!” Another voice agreed.

 

“He’s not gonna  _ eat _ anyone!” Mabel insisted. “The Beast is actually really nice once you get to know him. He’s our friend!”

 

“He poisoned our water supply, burned our crops, and delivered a plague unto our houses!” A third voice cried.

 

“What!? No he didn’t!” Dipper yelled exasperatedly.

 

“No, but are we just gonna wait around until he does?”

 

The crowd gasped and murmured even more. The situation was quickly getting out of control.

 

“Stop it!” Mabel cried, “Please, listen to me!”

 

This all gave Gideon an idea. He could still turn things in his favor!

 

“Y’know, people in this town tend to listen to me.” Gideon said as he stepped next to Mabel. “I might be able to make them see reason,  _ if _ you agree to be my queen!”

 

Mabel scowled and pushed him away. “Never!” The albino boy fell to the ground with a thud. He glared up at her.

 

“Wait, I have and idea!” Dipper assured his sister. “I can show you that the Beast isn’t dangerous!” He called out to the crowd and held up a tattered red book. Gideon gasped. It was the book Bill showed him!

 

“Show me the Beast!” Dipper said clearly. The golden handprint on the cover flashed with light and showed the Beast in the middle of a temper tantrum, roaring menacingly, destroying everything in the West Wing, and looking very,  _ very _ dangerous. “Oh… bad timing….”

 

“Ok, ok, I know this looks bad.” Mabel tried to appease the crowd. “But he’s just got a bit of an anger management problem! Don’t you guys ever get really mad and break a few things?”

 

“Why are you defendin’ this monster!?” Gideon asked her. “After everything he did to you an’ your friend!?”

 

WHY INDEED. A familiar, distorted voice replied in Gideon’s mind.

 

_ Bill?  _ He wondered in his head.

 

GOT IT IN ONE, KID! NOW WHY D’YOU THINK THOSE TWO WOULD BE ACTING WEIRD AND DEFENDING THEIR CAPTOR AFTER STAYING IN AN ENCHANTED CASTLE?

 

_ Are you sayin’ they’re under some sorta spell? _

 

I’M NOT _ SAYING _ ANYTHING! SURE LOOKS THAT WAY THOUGH! DON’T FORGET WHAT I TOLD YOU: THE BOOK IS THE BEAST’S WEAKNESS!

 

Gideon snapped out of his trance and ran over to Dipper, tackling the older boy unexpectedly and grabbing the book.

 

“Hey! Let him go!” Dipper yelled.

 

“These two are bewitched!” Gideon yelled to the crowd.

 

“Burn the witch!” The farmer yelled.

 

“No, not witches, they’re  _ be _ witched!” The albino boy corrected. “Bewitched by the Beast! We won’t be safe ‘til he’s good an’ dead! I say we kill the Beast!”

 

“Kill the Beast!” The crowd agreed, finally reaching full-on mob mode. They all grabbed torches and pitchforks.

 

“No! We won’t let you!” Mabel yelled. She, Dipper, and McGucket all charged Gideon at once, but Ghost-Eyes stepped in and grabbed them all.

 

“See? They’ve all gone mad!” Gideon declared. “Lock ‘em up ‘til we get back, we can’t have ‘em gettin’ in our way!”

* * *

 

Ghost-Eyes threw them all into the run down shack that had once been their home and blocked up the door and all the windows with great big wooden beams, too heavy for any normal person to lift on their own. The mob marched off, chanting “Kill the Beast!”

 

Mabel beat against the door, trying to break it down. Dipper just sat in the corner with his head in his hands.

 

“No, no… Gideon has the Journal! I was supposed to take care of him, and now Gideon has him! How could I let this happen!?”

 

“Quit moping and help me!” Mabel scolded him “If we don’t get out of here, both our Grunkles are toast!”

 

“Grunkle?” Dipper asked in confusion.

 

“Great Uncle. Grunkle. I’m stressed, I’m making up words!” She explained.

 

“Cheer up kids!” McGucket comforted them, handing them each a wrench. “It’s like I always say: When life locks you up, build a robut suit an’ escape!”

 

“You’ve literally never said that before.” Dipper pointed out.

 

“Haven’t I?” The inventor shrugged. “Well, m’point still stands. Now help me get these arms a-workin’!”

* * *

 

Thankfully the beast had worked through his rage phase and had sunk into his sulking phase, which wasn't much better emotionally, but at least he had stopped breaking things. Soos, Wendy, and Robbie used the lull in destruction to clean up a bit.

 

"I just dunno if he's gonna be able to move on from this one." Robbie lamented. "I don't think he'd ever opened up to someone like that."

 

"They were his family, they're irreplaceable." Wendy agreed.

 

Soos perked up. "Hey, do you dudes hear something sorta... angry mobbish?"

 

They all hopped up to the windows and looked out over the forest to see an angry mob marching down the old path towards the castle. The strangers all brandished torches and pitchforks and other various weapons, chanting "kill the Beast!" Over and over.

 

"Uhg, this  _ would _ happen today." Robbie groaned.

 

"Oh man, what do we do?" Soos wondered frantically. 

 

Luckily, Wendy was amazing at keeping her cool in a crisis, and immediately took charge. "You guys gather up anyone who can fight, I'm gonna go warn the boss, try and shake him outta his funk."

 

The axe hopped as quickly as she could up the stairs to the West Wing. The place was absolutely trashed, far worse than it had ever been. She doubted even Soos could fix all this. Working her way around all the rubble to the Beast's room proved to be difficult. She finally found him in a heap of shredded blankets.

 

"Scram." The Beast grumbled when he noticed her.

 

"Dude! There's a freakin'  _ mob  _ outside yelling that they're gonna kill you!" She exclaimed.

 

"Good for them." He grunted.

 

"Would you snap out of it!?" Wendy yelled. "They're gonna burn the place down if you don't do something!"

 

With a groan, the Beast slowly stood to his full height. There was a new manic glint in his eyes. "Well, I guess goin' out fightin' beats the alternative."

 

"Uh, that's not exactly the spirit I was hoping to inspire..." Wendy pointed out, but her Boss was already bounding recklessly out the door.

* * *

 

Meanwhile downstairs, every able-bodied person-turned-object was trying to hold the door against the mob's battering ram. With every bang on the door, more and more splinters few, and a few objects fell to the ground.

 

“This isn’t working!” Robbie cried as another bash from the mob bent the door in a few inches more.

 

“Wait, dude, I just had an idea!” Soos exclaimed proudly. “Everybody hide!”

 

“What!?” Robbie exclaimed incredulously, but everyone else did as they were told. With a crash like a toppling tree, the door was broken in and the mob entered the castle. The townsfolk looked around curiously, wondering why there were so many random tools and furniture in the grand entryway.

 

“Y’all take whatever goods you can find, but the Beast is mine!” Gideon declared, charging up the stairs. All the people-turned-objects tensed when they saw he had the Journal. As the boy hurried along, the rest of the mob filtered in. Once they were all inside, remains of the door slammed shut behind them.

 

“ _ Attack! _ ” Soos ordered, and every enchanted thing in the entryway descended on the mob like an explosion in a hardware store. The hammer was swinging around every-which-way, bruising and breaking bones. Robbie tripped people using his guitar strings, and Grenda jumped off the balcony, flat-out crushing a man.

 

“ _ Yeah! _ ” She bellowed her warcry.

 

Gideon stayed out of all this nonsense, completely focused on finding the Beast. He could hear Bill egging him on as he got closer.

 

WITH THAT BOOK YOU’VE GOT HIM RIGHT WHERE YOU WANT HIM KID! ONCE YOU KILL THAT BEAST YOU’LL BE THE HERO, AND THEN YOU CAN MARRY MABEL OR WHATEVER IT IS YOU HUMANS DO.

 

The boy tightened his grip on his crossbow and peeked around the corner. He was startled to see a pair of deep earthy brown eyes staring back at him.

 

“You lookin’ for me, punk?” The Beast growled dangerously. Gideon jumped back in shock, letting an arrow fly from his crossbow instinctively. It buried itself into the monster’s shoulder and he let out a howl of pain. For a moment, the boy thought he was victorious, but in seconds the Beast had straightened up again, and advanced on the boy like the arrow wasn’t even there.

 

“Now listen here you little troll, you can fight  _ me _ all you want, but tell your mob down there to leave this castle alone!” The monster bellowed.

 

THE BOOK YOU MORON, USE THE BOOK!

 

Gideon quickly whipped out the Journal, careful to keep it in sight of the Beast but out of his reach. It worked like a charm. The monster stopped dead in his tracks and absolute dread plastered his face.

 

“No… let him  _ go _ you runt!” The Beast demanded, although there was a waver of terror in his voice.

 

“Not so powerful now, are you Beast?” Gideon laughed maniacally. He opened the book and grabbed a page.

 

“No, please, I’ll do whatever you want, just don’t hurt him!” The monster was begging now. 

 

The boy smirked triumphantly. “I  _ want _ you to let Mabel go, so she’ll love me!”

 

“Wha… she left last night, her and Dipper both left!” The Beast pleaded.

 

“Not from the castle you fool! From the spell she’s under!”

 

The Beast looked at the kid as though he had just declared he was a snake sandwich.. “What the heck are you talking about?”

 

WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR, A LUNAR ECLIPSE? START WITH THE PAIN ALREADY! Bill demanded.

 

With a quick jerk, Gideon tore the page he was holding out. The Beast bellowed in agony, as though a piece of his own heart had been ripped out. The albino boy cackled, his own gleeful giggling mingling with the higher-pitched laughter of Bill that seemed to be less and less in his head. But even tearing the book, his one weakness, wasn’t enough to stop the Beast. He lunged into his tormentor, and they both tumbled out a window and onto one of the castle’s many balconies. 

 

The two of them grappled with the book, pushing and pulling, kicking and punching, back and forth. Gideon noticed the Beast seemed more concerned with keeping the book from harm than his own well-being. In fact, the Beast seemed to take every blow Gideon dealt, even ones that could have easily been avoided or blocked. It was as though the monster didn’t care whether it lived or died.

 

This gave Gideon an awful idea. He grabbed a shard of glass from the broken window and wound up to stab the Beast right in the neck. But before he could complete the action, a resounding  _ crash _ shook the castle, followed by a loud shout.

 

“Gideon, stop!” Mabel cried. She and Dipper were sitting on the shoulders of a crazy man-shaped, steam-powered machine of wood and brass which McGucket was piloting. The thing was currently scaling the walls of the castle, coming to the Beast’s aide. 

 

“What in tarnation!?” Gideon exclaimed.

 

“Kids!?” The Beast asked, stunned beyond any other words.

 

“I finally finished that escape robut!” McGucket declared proudly. 

 

The temporary pause in the fight quickly ended, as Gideon renewed his attempt to stab the Beast. But the return of the young twins reinvigorated the monster, and he grabbed the widdle arm in mid-arc, squeezing his hand so the boy dropped the shard of glass.

 

“F-fine!” Gideon spluttered, roughly opening the Journal with his free hand, yanking a page dangerously. “Looks like you need another taste of this then!” The Beast dropped him like a hot potato. 

 

“Gideon, you don’t know what you’re doing!” Dipper yelled at him from the robot. “That’s not just a book, he’s a person!”

 

It was Gideon’s turn to look at someone like they were spouting nonsense. “What’re you tryin’ to pull?” He glanced down at the book, taking a careful look at it for the first time. It was mostly blank, with a few scribbles of  _ No! Stop it, please!  _ and  _ What can I do?  _ written in the margins. As he looked, a terrifying image of an angry Gremloblin was suddenly scrawled across the page. Gideon dropped the book in surprise.

 

Unfortunately he was standing right at the edge of the balcony at the time.

 

“No!” Everyone yelled simultaneously. Dipper jumped, momentarily forgetting he was sitting precariously on a robot almost two stories up in the air, and nimbly caught the Journal in his arms. He probably would have fallen himself if Mabel hadn’t caught him by his vest.

 

“I got you! ...I got him!” He reassured everyone breathlessly. He shakily but carefully opened the book to an undamaged page. “Are you ok?”

 

> _ Hah! The pen really is mightier than the sword!  _ The man in the Journal wrote shakily. 

 

Dipper didn’t know whether to laugh or cry, so he settled for a hiccupy mix of both, hugging the book close to his body as he tried to steady his breathing. 

 

Their tearful reunion was cut short by a scream from Gideon. Everyone looked up to find the Beast dangling the boy over the edge, gripping him by the frilly front of his shirt. The monster’s eyes blazed with fury.

 

“No! No, please don’t hurt me!” Gideon begged pathetically. “Please, I’ll do anything!  _ Anything _ !”

 

“Hey, he’s ok!” Mabel called up to her uncle, holding up the Journal as proof. “No harm done! Put Gideon back, I know he’s a jerk, but you’re better than him!”

 

The Beast’s rage subsided a bit. “You’ll do anything, huh?” He asked the whimpering boy.

 

“I-I swear!” 

 

With a furious huff, the Beast turned and dropped the boy back onto the balcony. “Never lemme see your face anywhere  _ near _ this castle again!” He spat.

 

“Y-yes sir!” Gideon squealed and scampered away.

 

McGucket’s climbed the rest of the way up to the balcony. The kids were so excited to see the Beast they hopped off as soon as they could reach the railing.

 

“You came back!” The Beast grinned. He couldn’t remember the last time he felt this happy

 

So of course that was the moment everything went wrong.

 

Suddenly Gideon was standing on the balcony again, but there was something very wrong with the way he stood, the way he grinned, the way his yellow eyes twitched.

 

Mabel rolled her eyes and strode forward, intending to push the stubborn Gideon out again. “Gideon, I thought you were supposed to leave and never come back!”

 

“Mabel, wait!” Dipper ran after her, noticing something was definitely  _ off _ about the albino boy.

 

“WELP, LOOKS LIKE I GOTTA DO THINGS MYSELF. I REALLY SHOULD HAVE KNOWN THAT DUMMY COULDN’T HANDLE IT. AND BY  _ THINGS _ AND _ IT _ , I MEAN KILLING YOU!”

 

Gideon, or rather, Bill in Gideon’s body, lunged forward, slashing at them with a shard of glass. The kids weren’t expecting it, and surely would’ve been cut to ribbons if someone hadn’t lept between them. The Beast howled as the glass shard dug into his belly. 

 

Bill’s mask twisted into a surprised smirk. “WELL THAT’S NOT WHAT I WAS GOING FOR, BUT I CAN WORK WITH IT! GOOD LUCK BREAKING THE CURSE IN THE TWO POINT NINE MINUTES YOU HAVE BEFORE YOU BLEED OUT!”

 

In an act of defiance, the Beast lashed out with a claw, knocking Gideon’s body to the ground with enough force that Bill’s yellow triangle form bounced out.

 

“OH, YOU WANNA GO LIKE THIS? SHOW ME WHAT YOU GOT, BIG SHOT!” Bill taunted as the Beast struggled to remain standing. “OR DID YOU FORGET? NOTHING FROM YOUR WORLD CAN TOUCH ME!”

 

With his last ounce of strength, the Beast struck out with a left-hook and shattered Bill into a million pieces. “ _ Your  _ magic made me, wise guy.” He spat, and then collapsed.

 

Mabel and Dipper were at his side in an instant, trying to help him back up.

 

“Don’t.” McGucket advised them gently as he exited his robot-suit. “The best we c’n do for him now is make him comfer’ble.” The old man stooped and picked up the Journal, which now had a great gash in the polished golden handprint, and hung his head in sorrow.

 

“Y-you came back…” The Beast choked out as the young twins helped him lay down in a more comfortable position. 

 

“You already said that, silly.” Mabel said tearfully, clutching to his great paw desperately. “A-and of course we came back! We’re gonna be a family now, you and me and Dipper, and Grunkle Stanford and McGucket…. You can’t go now, we’re gonna be a happy family!” She broke down into sobs. “Y-you can’t go now, I l-love you!”

 

The Beast looked lovingly at the two children. He’d actually managed to make them happy. He’d actually managed to save their lives. “Heh, guess I was good for somethin’ after all…” He grunted with his last breath, and then went still.

 

Dipper grabbed the Beast by the face and shook him gently. “ _ Don’t _ talk like that, of course you’re good for something!” He pleaded. No response. He fought back tears as he buried his own face in the Beast’s fur. “W-we love you…” His muffled whisper was barely audible.

 

Everyone stood in silent mourning, except for Mabel, who sobbed freely. Even the sky seemed to cry, as rain began to fall. It took a while for them to notice there was a strange glowy quality to the rain, almost like pixie-dust, and it seemed to be gathering around the Beast, enveloping him in a magical cocoon. Mabel and Dipper backed away in surprise and fear as the mysterious force began to lift him into the air. The Beast’s tattered cloak billowed around him, obscuring what was going on behind the magical glow. One of his paws peeked out, but it was changing! The fur and claws retreating, and the shape changing to that of a normal hand. The rain continued to fall, but the glow dissipated from around the Beast, and he descended back down to the floor, although he really couldn’t be called a beast anymore. Now he was simply an old, silver-haired man in clothes much too big for him. 

 

The old man stirred, sitting up slowly and looking over his transformed hands, before glancing up at the still teary-eyed twins. “Kids?” He asked in hushed amazement.

 

The children looked into his deep, earthy brown eyes and knew, however unbelievable it might be, exactly who he was. They immediately embraced him.

 

“We did it!” Mabel cried, “The curse is broken!”

 

“The curse is broken…” Their uncle repeated, barely believing the words he was speaking. “... The curse is broken! Stanford!” He ran to where a very embarrassed looking McGucket was trying to help his brother stand.

 

“Stanley!” Ford nearly toppled over on his weak legs trying to hug his brother. The two of them collided and began trying to apologize over the other’s apology. 

 

“Omigosh!” Mabel exclaimed as she looked between them. “Why didn’t you guys tell us you were twins too!”

 

Stanley chuckled. “Heh, we forgot sweetie.”

 

Their hug pile soon grew bigger as the magical rain spread through the castle and the curse was lifted for the others. 

 

“Dudes, how is this even possible?” Soos marvaled. He was no longer a hammer, but a large young man with odd buck-teeth.

 

“Because we love each other!” Mabel explained. “He didn’t need a girlfriend, he just needed somebody to love him!”

 

“Aw man, if I’d known that I could’ve broken the curse forever ago!” The handyman lamented.

 

Ford chuckled dryly. “And I could’ve broken it if I’d been able to talk. Bill was incredibly devious when he cast his spell, he knew exactly how to torment us… but thanks to the kids, we’re ok now.”

 

Wendy was the next to arrive. “You did it! I can hardly believe it, but you did it!” She exclaimed. She was now a tall teenaged girl with long, beautiful red hair. “It shouldn’t surprise me this much, you guys are always doing incredible things.”

 

“Oh, uh, hah, thanks!” Dipper stammered. 

 

_ Oh no, she’s hot!  _ He thought.

 

Robbie and Grenda joined them next. “Omigosh, I’m so small and squishy now!” Grenda grinned, flexing her stocky arms experimentally.

 

“Whoa, I’m not a suffering artist anymore…” Robbie realized, now a gangly dark-haired teen. “Does this mean I have to write happy songs now?”

 

“Hah, that’ll be the day!” Stan laughed.

 

As the last signs of the curse were washed away, the rain cleared up and a bright blue sky was revealed. The large, strange family was content to lay there on the balcony, enjoying each other’s company and the wonderful feeling of being whole and human again.


End file.
